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A view of the Messier 90 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy is about 60 million light years away from the Milky Way, but it is getting closer.
Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, W. Sargent et al.
A stunning new picture of the Hubble Space Telescope depicts Messier 90, a spiral galaxy located about 60 million light-years away from our own Milky Way – but approaching it.
Although the image itself is incredible, the information that astronomers discovered during their capture is even more fascinating. Messier 90 is one of the few galaxies to head for the Milky Way, according to a Hubble statement. Scientists are able to say that the galaxy is getting closer to us because of the light coming from Messier 90.
"The galaxy compresses the wavelength of its light as it moves toward us, as if it were crushed when you press one end," said Hubble's representative in his release. On the spectrum of visible light, the shorter wavelengths appear in blue. Thus, because its light is compressed from our point of view, the Messier 90 presents a phenomenon called "offset of the blues", which indicates to the scientists that the Messier 90 approaches us.
Related: Messier List: Amazing Views of Hubble Telescope's Deep Sky Objects
Almost all other galaxies we can observe are moving away from us with the expansion of the universe, according to the Hubble statement. We see their light stretched towards the red end of the spectrum of visible light (called redshift).
Messier 90 is part of the Virgo Cluster, a group of more than 1200 galaxies. Astronomers have said that the blueshift of Messier 90 is probably due to the incredible mass of this group, which accelerates the galaxies within the group at high speeds and sends them into strange orbits. The strange passages of the galaxies send them both to us and away from us, according to Hubble's statement.
The Virgin's group itself is moving away from us, Hubble said in a statement, but some of the group's galaxies, including Messier 90, are moving faster than the group as a whole. So, from the Earth's point of view, we see the galaxy moving towards us, even though other galaxies in the same group seem to be moving away from us at high speed.
This image of Messier 90 in Hubble combines infrared, ultraviolet and visible light. Since the camera used to take the image was composed of four light sensors with overlapping fields of view – one with a magnification higher than the other three – the image is arranged with a hole-shaped from stairway to the top.
You can see more Hubble images of Messier objects, all discovered by astronomer Charles Messier, here.
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