The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the spiral galaxy Messier 88 (M88), also known as NGC 4501, located approximately 63 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices.
Key Details
M88 is an active galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center, estimated at about 100 million solar masses. The black hole is accreting gas and dust and may be powering outflows of gas from the galaxy's center.
The galaxy's center contains old, reddish stars, giving it a warm glow. Tightly wound, symmetrical spiral arms extend outward, containing blue star clusters and dust clouds. M88 is a member of the Virgo Cluster, a group of over a thousand galaxies.
M88 is moving toward the center of the Virgo Cluster, about 2 million light-years from its current position.
Journey Through the Cluster
In 200-300 million years, it will make a close approach to Messier 87, the cluster's central elliptical galaxy. During this approach, the galaxy will experience ram pressure stripping, a process where interstellar gas is swept away as the galaxy moves through the intracluster medium.
Evidence of Stripping
Observations show that M88's gas disk is truncated and compressed on its leading edge. The galaxy has less cold gas than expected for its size, especially in its outer regions, indicating that ram pressure stripping is occurring.
Observation Program
The image was taken as part of Hubble observing program #18103 (PI: D. Thilker), which aims to study how spiral galaxies evolve in dense cluster environments. The program uses Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to resolve individual star clusters and nebulae in galaxies tens of millions of light-years away.