A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the core and the innermost parts of the spiral arms of a galaxy called Messier 100.
This Hubble image shows the grand design spiral galaxy Messier 100. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
Messier 100, also known as M100, NGC 4321 and LEDA 40153, is located approximately 50 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices.
This galaxy is one of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster, a group of about 1,300 (and possibly up to 2,000) galaxies.
Its apparent magnitude of 10.1 means that, while it can be seen through small telescopes, it will appear only as a faint patch of light. Larger telescopes can resolve more details of the galaxy.
The galaxy was discovered on March 15, 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, Charles Messier’s fellow comet hunter who discovered eight comets in his lifetime.
Messier 100 is a stunning example of a grand design spiral galaxy, a type of galaxy with prominent and very well-defined spiral arms.
These dusty structures swirl around the galaxy’s nucleus, and are marked by a flurry of star formation activity that dots Messier 100 with bright blue, high-mass stars.
Messier 100 has a diameter of about 107,000 light-years and hosts an active galactic nucleus, a bright region at the galaxy’s core caused by a supermassive black hole that is actively swallowing material, which radiates brightly as it falls inwards.
The galaxy became famous in the early 1990s with the release of two images of the object taken with Hubble before and after a major repair to the telescope, which illustrated the dramatic improvement in Hubble’s observations.
This new image, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), demonstrates the continued evolution of Hubble’s capabilities over two decades in orbit.
