esahubble_opo9449d October 26th, 1994
Credit: Dr. Wendy L. Freedman, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and NASA/ESA
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a region of the galaxy M100 shows a class of pulsating star called a Cepheid Variable. Though rare, these stars are reliable distance indicators to galaxies. Based on the Hubble observation, the distance to M100 has been measured accurately as 56 million light-years (+/- 6 million light-years), making it the farthest object where intergalactic distances have been determined precisely.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9449d/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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