Photo of the day: at the heart of a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way
A stunning snapshot of the spiral galaxy M 61, also known as Messier 61, has been released in the Image of the Week section of the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The imaged structure is located in the constellation Virgo, at a distance of more than 52 million light-years from Earth. There is a supermassive black hole in the galaxy, which is 5 million times more massive than our Sun.
The released image clearly shows the structure of Messier 61 – a bright central part and spiral arms. The latter are regions of active star formation.
The Messier 61 galaxy is similar in shape and size to our Milky Way. The captured structure was discovered back in 1779.
To create this image, data were used from the Hubble orbital observatory and the Very Large Telescope (VLT). This complex is located on Mount Cerro Paranal, at the Paranal Observatory, which is part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Below you can see a picture in high resolution – 4077 × 3978 pixels (click to enlarge):
