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Galaxy M 64 (which is also known as the Black Eye Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy located some 17 million light years away toward the constellation Coma Berenices. The unusual appearance of Galaxy M 64––marked by a dark band of obscuring dust covering part of the bright nucleus of the galaxy––was caused by a collision of the galaxy with a smaller companion galaxy, probably more than one billion years ago. Galaxy M 64 is also unusual in that gas and dust in the outer regions of the galaxy rotate opposite gas and dust in the inner regions of the galaxy. This image was obtaind in 2001 using the Hubble Space Telescope with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.
Image and text copyright © Astrographics. All rights reserved. Image courtesy of Space Telescope Science Institute. |
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