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Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 66 lies a mere 35 million light-years away. The gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across, similar in size to the Milky Way. This reprocessed Hubble Space Telescope close-up view spans a region about 30,000 light-years wide around the galactic core. It shows the galaxy's disk dramatically inclined to our line-of-sight. Surrounding its bright core, the likely home of a supermassive black hole, obscuring dust lanes and young, blue star clusters sweep along spiral arms dotted with the tell-tale glow of pinksh star forming regions. Messier 66, also known as NGC 3627, is the brightest of the three galaxies in the gravitationaly interacting Leo Triplet.
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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
Publications with words: spiral galaxy
See also:
- APOD: 2025 September 4 B NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
- APOD: 2025 August 22 B A Tale of Two Nebulae
- APOD: 2025 August 19 B Giant Galaxies in Pavo
- APOD: 2025 August 18 B NGC 1309: A Useful Spiral Galaxy
- APOD: 2025 July 4 B NGC 6946 and NGC 6939
- APOD: 2025 June 30 B NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
- APOD: 2025 June 19 B NGC 3521: Galaxy in a Bubble