Messier Monday

Esahubble_potw1902a_1024

esahubble_potw1902a January 14th, 2019

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Faber et al.

This huge ball of stars around 100 billion in total is an elliptical galaxy located some 55 million light-years away from us. Known as Messier 89, this galaxy appears to be perfectly spherical; this is unusual for elliptical galaxies, which tend to be elongated ellipsoids. The apparently spherical nature of Messier 89 could, however, be a trick of perspective, and be caused by its orientation relative to the Earth. Messier 89 is slightly smaller than the Milky Way, but has a few interesting features that stretch far out into the surrounding space. One structure of gas and dust extends up to 150 000 light-years out from the galaxys centre, which is known to house a supermassive black hole. Jets of heated particles reach out to 100 000 light-years from the galaxy, suggesting that Messier 89 may have once been far more active perhaps an active quasar or radio galaxy than it is now. It is also surrounded by an extensive system of shells and plumes, which may have been caused by past mergers with smaller galaxies and implies that Messier 89 as we know it may have formed in the relatively recent past. Messier 89 was discovered by astronomer Charles Messier in 1781, when Messier had been cataloguing astronomical objects for 23 years ever since he mistook a faint object in the sky for Halleys Comet. Upon closer inspection, he realised the object was actually the Crab Nebula. To prevent other astronomers from making the same error, he decided to catalogue all the bright, deep-sky objects that could potentially be mistaken for comets. His methodical observations of the night sky led to the first comprehensive catalogue of astronomical objects: the Messier catalogue! Messier 89 holds the record for being the last ever giant elliptical to be found by Messier, and the most perfectly spherical galaxy in the entire catalogue of 110 objects.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1902a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 89
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Elliptical
Esahubble_potw1902a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 35m 40.9s
DEC = 12° 34’ 1.3”
Orientation
North is 129.5° CCW
Field of View
2.4 x 1.8 arcminutes
Constellation
Virgo

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1902a_1280
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ID
potw1902a
Subject Category
C.5.1.4  
Subject Name
Messier 89
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Faber et al.
Release Date
2019-01-14T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1902a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, WFPC2
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
V, I
Central Wavelength
555, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
188.920297489, 12.5670165849
Reference Dimension
1425.0, 1069.0
Reference Pixel
712.5, 534.5
Scale
-2.77686360047e-05, 2.77686360047e-05
Rotation
129.51999999999998
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1902a
Metadata Date
2018-11-11T19:44:33+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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