we used the Annual Average Sky Maps (AASM: Hauser 1997), which provide a single, ten-month averaged intensity value per pixel in each of the DIRBE bands. Note that the zodiacal light contribution was not subtracted from the DIRBE counts. This is because we do not estimate the zodiacal contribution to the FIR bands to be significant or to show features on the angular scales relevant here.

We conducted a number of studies of galaxies in the Virgo cluster in which we studied various photometric indices for entire objects as well as for localized regions in each galaxy (Almoznino & Brosch 1998, Heller 1998). The possibility that these programs could be affected by foreground dust imposed our selection of the Virgo Cluster as the initial target for combined FIR and other spectral band interpretations.

We detected a ring-like structure of FIR emission in COBE/DIRBE maps of the VC, which is centered approximately on M87. The ring is approximately centered on (1950) 12$^h$31$^m$; +13$^{\circ}$ (l=285$^{\circ}$.8, b=75$^{\circ}$; J2000) and its diameter is $\sim4^{\circ}$. The width of the FIR emission in the rim of the ring is $\sim1^{\circ}$. The detection was made originally on the COBE/DIRBE maps, but the existence of the feature was 