The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a detailed image of a spectacular part of the spiral galaxy Messier 95.
This Hubble image reveals a detailed view of part of the spiral galaxy Messier 95. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
Messier 95 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Leo.
This galaxy was discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and catalogued by French astronomer Charles Messier just four days later.
Also known as M95, NGC 3351, IRAS F10413+1157, LEDA 32007 and UGC 5850, it lies at a distance of about 35 million light-years from Earth.
The galaxy is a member of the M96 galaxy group, which also includes the intermediate spiral galaxy Messier 96 and the elliptical galaxy Messier 105.
Messier 95 contains around 40 billion stars and has a bar cutting through its center, surrounded by an inner ring currently forming new stars.
As well as hosting this stellar nursery, the galaxy is a known host of the dramatic and explosive final stages in the lives of massive stars — supernovae.
In March 2016, a type IIP supernova named SN 2012aw was observed in the outer regions of one of Messier 95’s spiral arms.
Once the light from the supernova had faded, astronomers were able to compare observations of the region before and after the explosion to find out which star had disappeared — the progenitor star.
In this case, the star was an especially huge red supergiant star up to 26 times more massive than the Sun.
The new image of Messier 95 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument.
Five filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
