NASA has released a beautiful image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral galaxy Messier 90.
This Hubble image shows the spectacular spiral galaxy Messier 90. The image combines infrared, ultraviolet and visible light gathered by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). It is based on data obtained through six filters. The color results from assigning different colors to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / W. Sargent et al.
Messier 90 lies approximately 60 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo.
It was discovered by the French astronomer Charles Messier on March 18, 1781.
Messier 90 is the brightest member of the Virgo Cluster, a group of about 1,300 — and possibly up to 2,000 — galaxies.
Also known as M90 or NGC 4569, this galaxy is remarkable — it is one of the few galaxies seen to be traveling toward our Milky Way Galaxy, not away from it.
Messier 90’s light reveals this incoming motion in that it is blueshifted.
In simple terms, the galaxy is compressing the wavelength of its light as it moves towards us, like a slinky being squashed when you push on one end.
This increases the frequency of the light and shifts it towards the blue end of the spectrum.
As our Universe is expanding, almost all of the galaxies we see in the Universe are moving away from us, and we therefore see their light as redshifted, but Messier 90 appears to be a rare exception.
Astronomers think that this blueshift is likely caused by the colossal mass of the Virgo Cluster accelerating its members to high velocities on bizarre and peculiar orbits, sending them whirling around on odd paths that take them both towards and away from us over time.
While the cluster itself is moving away from us, some of its constituent galaxies, such as Messier 90, are moving faster than the cluster as a whole, making it so that from Earth we see the galaxy heading towards us.
However, some are also moving in the opposite direction within the cluster, and thus seem to be streaking away from us at very high velocity.
