Messier 96

Spiral arms seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of a beautiful island universe. Of course Messier 96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so.

That’s about the size of our own Milky Way. Messier 96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant member of the Leo I Galaxy Group. Background galaxies and smaller Leo I Galaxy Group members can be found by examining the picture.

The most intriguing one is itself a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge on behind the outer spiral arm near the 1 o’clock position from center. Its bright central bulge cut by its own dark cosmic dust clouds, the edge-on background spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size of Messier 96. If that background galaxy is similar in actual size to Messier 96, then it would be about 5 times farther away.

Astronomical Wonders are revealed in these glimpses of deep space, with space clouds and distant galaxies adding layers of mystery to the view.