Messier 61

 Messier 61

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA

Discovered in 1779 by the Italian astronomer Barnaba Oriani, M61 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Virgo. Charles Messier noticed it on the same night as Oriani, but he mistook the galaxy for a passing comet. A member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, M61 is roughly 55 million light-years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 10.2. It is most easily spotted during the month of May and can be observed using a moderately sized telescope.

M61 is a type of galaxy known as a starburst galaxy. Starburst galaxies experience an incredibly high rate of star formation, hungrily using up their reservoir of gas in a very short period of time (in astronomical terms). But this is not the only activity going on within the galaxy; an X-ray source has been detected deep at its heart, leading astronomers to believe that a supermassive black hole sits at its core. This galaxy has also been host to seven observed supernovas — the most of any galaxy in the Messier catalog.

This Hubble image of M61, created from observations at visible and infrared wavelengths, grants a close look at the face-on galaxy’s structure. The spiral arms can be seen in stunning detail, swirling inward to the very center of the galaxy, where they form a smaller, intensely bright spiral. In the outer regions, these vast arms are sprinkled with bright, blue regions where new stars are being formed from hot, dense clouds of gas.

Image credit: Image courtesy of Sterllium

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