This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices. 55 million light-years away, it is part of our local supercluster. Charles Messier is the French astronomer who produced a catalog of astronomy objects in the 17th and 18th century. He cataloged objects from M1 to M110.
While it is a handsome galaxy and shows the classic bar or bright region of dust and gas at its center where stars are formed, this particular galaxy was observed by Hubble in order to learn about the monstrous black hole at its center. M91 has a black hole at its center, like most of the other galaxies. The mass of the black hole was calculated using Hubble data in 2009, and it was found to be between 9.6 and 38 million times the mass of the Sun.
Hubble scientists wrote that archival Hubble data allowed them to weigh the central black hole. Astronomers used Hubble to get visible and ultraviolet observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths.
This image was collected as part of the PHANGS-HST project. Hubble images from this project include the spiral galaxy NGC 2835.
Recommended video
All Rights Reserved © 2024
