In a telescope image, galaxy M 89 looks like a giant bright ball of stars. But it should have the shape of an ellipsoid.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured the galaxy M 89, which consists of about 100 billion stars and is located 55 million light-years from us in the constellation Virgo. Phys.
It was noticed that the space object looks like a giant bright ball of stars, which is unusual for elliptical galaxies, which, as a rule, have the shape of elongated ellipsoids. The truth is that the appearance of this galaxy may be a game of perspective and the result of how it is located in relation to Earth.
Astronomer Charles Messier discovered M 89, which is slightly smaller than the Milky Way, in 1781. Later, he created a catalog of galaxies. Actually, the letter M in the name of the galaxy stands for the first letter of his last name.
The M 89 has several interesting features. One of its gas and dust structures extends up to 150,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy. At the center of M 89 is a supermassive black hole that has been incredibly active in the past.
The researchers also speculated that there is a quasar at the center of the galaxy, which could explain the object’s intense brightness, since quasars are the brightest objects in the galaxy.
In addition, astronomers recorded a very complex multilayer structure around the galaxy M 89, which is evidence of a merger with smaller galaxies. This means that this galaxy formed in its current form in the recent past.
Hubble was previously reported to have photographed the spiral galaxy IC 1776, located more than 150 million light-years from Earth.
Source: korrespondent
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