(ORDO NEWS) — The French astronomer Charles Messier (1730-1817) adored comets and observed them mostly.
But in his pictures, besides comets, there were other things: blurry swirls of light. Messier cataloged these eddies; in total, he counted more than a hundred objects, which later began to bear his name.
These were places full of stars in the Universe: galaxies, planetary nebulae and galaxy clusters. New telescopes make it possible to see them in such detail, in which Messier could not even dream of. The Hubble Space Observatory has captured almost all of Messier’s objects.
NASA, ESA, STScI and D. Maoz (Tel Aviv University/Wise Observatory)
But M59 is a bright light source in the upper left corner of the picture. It is a bright elliptical galaxy 60 million light-years away.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and W. Jaffe (Sterrewacht Leiden) and P. Côté (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory)
M62 is an ancient globular cluster. its age is about 12 billion years. It is much closer to the Sun to the center of our galaxy. Its shape is far from ideal, while most globular star clusters are more or less spherical.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and S. Anderson (University of Washington) and J. Chaname (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
M75 is an even older cluster of stars. It is almost the same age as the universe, its age is 13 billion years. In this picture, astronomers counted 40,000 stars. The distance to Earth is 67,500 light years.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and G. Piotto (Università degli Studi di Padova) and E. Noyola (Max Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik)
M86 is part of the Virgo galaxy cluster, located 52 million light-years from Earth. Unlike its neighbors in the cluster, this cluster of stars moves towards the solar system, and not vice versa.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and S. Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz) and P. Côté (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory)
The spiral galaxy Messier 88 contains 400 billion stars. It is separated from the Milky Way by 47 miles of light years, and this distance is constantly increasing.
NASA, ESA, STScI and M. Stiavelli (STScI)
Charles Messier first noticed M89 in 1781. This elliptical galaxy illuminates a neighboring galaxy, which is visible in the center of the image.
There are about a trillion (thousands of billions) of stars in the huge spiral galaxy M90.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and V. Rubin (Carnegie Institution of Washington), D. Maoz (Tel Aviv University/Wise Observatory) and D. Fisher (University of Maryland)
Another spiral galaxy, Messier 95 at 33 St. years from the Sun. New stars are especially active in it.
NASA, ESA, STScI, and D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and R. Chandar (University of Toledo)
The Messier 98 galaxy is also huge, with over a trillion stars. Part of the galaxy is not visible due to the limitations of Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Cameras.
NASA, ESA, STScI and V. Rubin (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
M108, also known as “surfboard”.
NASA, ESA, STScI and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)
And finally, Messier 110 is an elliptical galaxy (in the lower right corner). It is small, there are only 10 billion stars in it, but it is visible even in telescopes of the 19th century, because it is relatively close to us – only 2.69 million light years. years.
NASA, ESA, STScI and D. Geisler (Universidad de Concepción)
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