M100: 宏伟的螺旋星系

2024年5月2日

M100: A Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
Image Credit & Copyright: Drew Evans

Explanation: Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a grand design spiral galaxy. The large galaxy of over 100 billion stars has well-defined spiral arms, similar to our own Milky Way. One of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, M100, also known as NGC 4321 is 56 million light-years distant toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. In this telescopic image, the face-on grand design spiral shares a nearly 1 degree wide field-of-view with slightly less conspicuous edge-on spiral NGC 4312 (at upper right). The 21 hour long equivalent exposure from a dark sky site near Flagstaff, Arizona, planet Earth, reveals M100’s bright blue star clusters and intricate winding dust lanes which are hallmarks of this class of galaxies. Measurements of variable stars in M100 have played an important role in determining the size and age of the Universe.

Tomorrow’s picture: cloudy exoplanet

M100: 宏伟的螺旋星系
影像提供与版权: Drew Evans

说明: 庞大美丽的M100有宏伟螺旋星系的贴切称号。这个庞然的星系，拥有超过1千亿颗成员星；此外，它也酷似我们的银河系，拥有轮廓鲜明的螺旋臂。亦名为NGC 4321的M100，位于后发座方向，离我们约有5千6百万光年远，是室女星系团最明亮的星系成员之一。在这幅望远镜影像里，这个正向的宏伟螺旋星系，与较不出采的侧向螺旋星系NGC 4312（右上）共享了这片宽将近1度的视野。这张摄于地球亚利桑那州旗杆镇、总曝光时间等同于21小时的影像，突显了M100里的明亮泛蓝星团和错综复杂的蜿蜒尘埃带等，这些螺旋星系的共有标志性特征。量测星系M100里的变星，对测定宇宙的大小和年龄有重要贡献。

明日的图片: cloudy exoplanet