Messier 87

This enormous elliptical galaxy is home of several trillion stars some 15,000 globular star clusters.

Distance

54 million light-years

Apparent Magnitude

9.6

constellation

Virgo

object type

Elliptical Galaxy

This Hubble image of M87 is a composite of individual observations in visible and infrared light. Its most striking features are the blue jet near the center and the myriad of star-like globular clusters scattered throughout the image.

NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: P. Cote (Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics) and E. Baltz (Stanford University)

The elliptical galaxy M87 is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of roughly 15,000 globular star clusters. For comparison, our Milky Way galaxy contains only a few hundred billion stars and about 150 globular clusters. The monstrous M87 is the dominant member of the neighboring Virgo cluster of galaxies, which contains some 2,000 galaxies. Discovered in 1781 by Charles Messier, this galaxy is located 54 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.6 and can be observed using a small telescope most easily in May.

Streaming out from the center of M87 like a cosmic searchlight is one of nature’s most amazing phenomena: a black-hole-powered jet of subatomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. In this Hubble image, the blue jet contrasts with the yellow glow from the combined light of billions of unresolved stars and the point-like clusters of stars that make up this galaxy.

NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The jet released from the galactic center is a black-hole-powered stream of material that is being ejected from M87’s core. As gaseous material from the center of the galaxy accretes onto the black hole, the energy released produces a stream of subatomic particles that are accelerated to velocities near the speed of light.

At the center of the Virgo cluster, M87 may have accumulated some of its many globular clusters by gravitationally pulling them from nearby dwarf galaxies that seem to be devoid of such clusters today.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; Producer, Director & Editor: James Leigh

For more information about Hubble’s observations of M87, see:

NASA’s Hubble Finds that a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions

This star chart for M87 represents the view from mid-northern latitudes for the given month and time.

Image courtesy of Stellarium

A star chart shows M87 as seen from the Southern Hemisphere in the northern night sky in May at 10pm.

This star chart for M87 represents the view from mid-southern latitudes for the given month and time.

Image courtesy of Stellarium

Explore Hubble's Messier Catalog

The following pages contain some of Hubble’s best images of Messier objects.

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