Based on these results, Schweizer considered that NGC 1316 was built up through the merger of several smaller galaxies. Such merger events may have fueled the central supermassive black hole, that has a mass estimated in 130-150 million of solar masses[6] with gas, causing the galaxy to become a radio galaxy. He also states that NGC 1316 is comparable to the giant elliptical galaxies found in the centers of other clusters of galaxies.[5] Using spectroscopy of its brightest globular clusters, the merger is estimated to have occurred ~3 billion years ago.[7]