A portrait of a beauty

Nuzzled in the chest of the constellation Virgo (the Virgin) lies a beautiful cosmic gem — the galaxy Messier 61. This glittering spiral galaxy is aligned face-on towards Earth, thus presenting us with a breathtaking view of its structure. The gas and dust of the intricate spiral arms are studded with billions of stars. This galaxy is a bustling hub of activity with a rapid rate of star formation, and both a massive nuclear star cluster and a supermassive black hole buried at its heart.

Messier 61 is one of the largest members of the Virgo Cluster, which is made up of more than a thousand galaxies, and is itself at the centre of the Virgo Supercluster — to which our Milky Way also belongs. This dazzling beauty was first discovered in 1779, and it has been capturing astronomers’ interest ever since. Set against a dark sky littered with galaxies, this image shows the awe-inspiring M61 in its full glory — even at its distance of over 50 million light-years.

This image was taken as part of ESO’s Cosmic Gems Programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. In case the data collected could be useful for future scientific purposes, these observations are saved and made available to astronomers through ESO’s Science Archive.

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Om bilden

ID:potw1901a
Typ:Observation
Publiceringsdatum:7 januari 2019 06:00
Storlek:1457 x 1486 px

Om objektet

Namn:Messier 61, NGC 4303
Typ:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Avstånd:50 miljon ljusår
Constellation:Virgo
Kategori:Galaxies

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Koordinater

Position (RA):12 21 57.51
Position (Dec):4° 28' 25.12"
Field of view:6.11 x 6.24 arcminutes
Orientering:Nord är -0.0° vänster om lodrätt

Färger och filter

BandVåglängdTeleskop
Synligt ljus
b
440 nmVery Large Telescope
FORS2
Synligt ljus
v
557 nmVery Large Telescope
FORS2
Infrarött
R
655 nmVery Large Telescope
FORS2
Synligt ljus
H-alpha
656 nmVery Large Telescope
FORS2