Spiral Galaxy Messier 88

Located approximately 47 million light-years away, Messier 88 (M88) is a spiral galaxy with well-defined and symmetrical arms located within the large Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is classified as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy, meaning it has a luminous, active galactic nucleus (AGN) producing narrow spectral line emission from highly ionized gas in its center. At the galaxy’s core resides a supermassive black hole estimated to be 100 million times more massive than our Sun. This observation was taken using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 with a single visible-light filter. With Hubble, observations in multiple filters are needed to produce color images, so this image is in black and white only. Nearly half of the galaxy is shown in this view.