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Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson
and
Mike Selby
Explanation:
Spiral arms seem to swirl around the core of
Messier 96 in
this
colorful, detailed portrait
of a beautiful island universe.
Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy,
and counting the faint arms extending
beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand
light-years or so.
That's about the size of our own Milky Way.
M96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant
member of the
Leo
I galaxy group.
Background galaxies and smaller Leo I group members
can be found by examining the picture.
The most intriguing one is itself a spiral galaxy seen
nearly edge on
behind the outer spiral arm near the 1 o'clock position from
center.
Its bright central bulge cut by its own dark dust clouds,
the edge-on background spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size of M96.
If that background galaxy is similar in actual size to M96, then it
would be about 5 times
farther
away.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy - M 96
Publications with words: spiral galaxy - M 96
See also: