The latest imagery from the European Southern Observatory ( ESO ) is in , andit ’s stunning . But ESO experts say that , while it may bet placid in its portrait , the voluted wandflower Messier 77 is anything but thrill .
mussy 77 is one of 110 celestial objects named for the eighteenth - 100 French astronomerCharles Messier . Messier was a uproariously single - minded Isle of Man who really only cared about finding comets with his scope . But so as to do so , he had to look at , and retiring , a lot of other clobber in the sky .
To spare himself and other comet hunter the slow chore of see every gorgeous , glittering object in the sky , Messier start compiling a leaning of dazzling nebulae and wiz clustering — or , as he wish to call them , " metre - wasting object to avoid . "
The 77th item on the list was discovered in 1780 byPierre Méchain , who frequently cooperate with Messier . Méchain recollect the bright object was a nebula ; Messier , in his list , called it a nebulous bunch . afterwards astronomer with good telescopes would finally learn that both military personnel were wrong : Messier 77 is a galaxy . A whirling , enormous galaxy mensurate more than 120,000 light - years across .
The galaxy is locate in the constellation Cetus ( the sea monster ) , about 47 million light - year from Earth .
Pretty though it may be , mussy 77 is a rough customer . It ’s so big and healthy that its gravity twists and warps other galaxies nearby . And the calm dark spot that take care like the center of a violent storm is really a supermassiveblack hole . Star stuff that ventures too closely to the blackness gets squashed and superheated and start radiating huge amounts of energy .
Like many space photos , theVLTimage above is a composite plant of four different images , each from a different wavelength . blistering young stars in the galax ’s spiral blazon show up here as pink , while the red lines are strand - similar structures in the environ gas .
you’re able to find more gorgeous images of celestial objects at the ESO’sCosmic Gemswebsite .
