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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Elliptical Galaxy M87
Explanation: In spiral galaxies , majestic winding arms of young stars and interstellar gas and dust rotate in a flat disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. But elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler. Lacking gas and dust to form new stars, their randomly swarming older stars, give them an ellipsoidal (egg-like) shape. Still, elliptical galaxies can be very large. Over 120,000 light-years in diameter (larger than our own Milky Way), elliptical galaxy M87 is the dominant galaxy at the center of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster , some 50 million light-years away. M87 is likely home to a supermassive black hole responsible for the high-energy jet of particles emerging from the giant galaxy's central region.
| Date | May 20, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |