The Hubble Space Telescope has captured stunning new images of the elliptical galaxy Messier 89, located 55 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is unusual in that it is almost perfectly spherical, while most elliptical galaxies are elongated ellipsoids.
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| Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Faber et al. |
The apparent spherical nature of Messier 89 could be a trick of perspective, and the result of its orientation relative to Earth. However, it is also possible that the galaxy is truly spherical, which would make it a rare and unusual object.
Messier 89 is estimated to contain around 100 billion stars, and its central region is home to a supermassive black hole with a mass of one billion times that of the Sun. The galaxy is also home to a number of globular clusters, which are tightly-packed groups of stars.
The new images of Messier 89 were taken using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The images reveal the intricate details of the galaxy's stellar population, as well as its dust lanes and gas clouds.
The images of Messier 89 are a valuable resource for astronomers studying the formation and evolution of galaxies. They also provide a glimpse into the distant universe, and the vast array of astronomical objects that lie beyond our own galaxy.
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