Messier 77 also known as Cetus A, discovered 240 years ago by Pierre Mechain was then thought as a Nebula. Charles Messier and William Herchel later described it as star cluster and as we all know today, it is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Cetus. 45 million light-years away from us, M77 is easy to spot with binoculars due to its compact structure with a bright core. M77 having a designation NGC 1068 in the New General Catalogue is a type II Seyfert galaxy and is the brightest galaxy of this type in the sky. Seyfert galaxies are galaxies which have highly ionized gas surrounding and extremely active centre. This image of M77 is taken by Hubble Space Telescope in which we can see the loosely wound spiral arms dotted with blue and red, the countless star-forming regions. The galaxy has, on its core a supermassive black hole which has an estimated mass of around 15 million times the mass of the sun.
On 2018 November 24 Astronomers picked up a 15th magnitude supernova explosion, the collapse of a supergiant star. As you read this the debris from its blast is expanding outwards with complex elements that may seed the future generations of stars and their planetary systems.
– Gowri R S
Image Copyright: Image Credit: Hubble, NASA, ESA; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt
Hubble Space Telescope
Author
