Messier 88 (also known as M88 or NGC 4501) is a

spiral galaxy Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s away from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Coma Berenices Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism in the northern sky, which has been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is in the direction of the fourth galactic quadrant, between Leo and Boötes, and it is visible in both hemisphere ...

. It was discovered by

Charles Messier Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose f ...

in 1781.

Properties

M88 is one of the fifteen Messier objects that belong to the nearby

Virgo Cluster The Virgo Cluster is a large cluster of galaxies whose center is 53.8 ± 0.3 Mly (16.5 ± 0.1 Mpc) away in the constellation Virgo. Comprising approximately 1,300 (and possibly up to 2,000) member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the lar ...

of galaxies. It is galaxy number 1401 in the Virgo Cluster Catalogue (VCC) of 2096 galaxies that are candidate members of the cluster. M88 appears to be on or ending a highly elliptical orbit, currently on an approximate or direct course toward the cluster center, which is occupied by the giant

elliptical galaxy An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The R ...

M87. It is currently 0.3 to 0.48 million parsecs from the center and will come closest to the core in about 200 to 300 million years. Its motion through the intergalactic medium of its cluster is creating, as expected, ram pressure that is stripping away the outer region of neutral hydrogen. To date, this has been detected along the western, leading edge of the galaxy. This galaxy is inclined to the line of sight by 64°. It is classified as an Sbc spiral, a status between Sb (medium-wound) and Sc (loosely wound) spiral arms. The spiralling arms are very regular and can be followed down to the galactic core. The maximum rotation velocity of the gas is 241.6 ± 4.5 km/s. M88 is classified as a type 2

Seyfert galaxy Seyfert galaxies are one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with quasars. They have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous, distant and bright sources of electromagnetic radiation) with very high surface brightnesses whose spectra ...

, which means it produces narrow

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

emission from highly

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conven ...

ized gas in the nucleus. In the core region there is a central condensation with a 230 parsec diameter, which has two concentration peaks. This condensation is being fed by inflow from the spiral arms. The

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical obj ...

at the core of this galaxy has 10^7.9

solar mass The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass ...

es, or about 80 million

es (). In 1999,

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

1999cl was discovered in this galaxy.

References

External links

Spiral Galaxy M88 @ SEDS Messier pages
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Messier 088 Unbarred spiral galaxies Virgo Cluster Coma Berenices 088 04501 07675 41517 Astronomical objects discovered in 1781 Discoveries by Charles Messier

Properties

See also

References

External links