M89 Region in Virgo

M89 (Messi­er 89, also known as NGC 4552) is an ellipt­ic­al galaxy in the con­stel­la­tion Virgo. It was dis­covered by Charles Messi­er on March 18, 1781. M89 is a mem­ber of the Virgo Cluster of galax­ies and can be found upper right of the cen­ter of this image.

The galaxy fea­tures a sur­round­ing struc­ture of gas and dust, extend­ing up to 150,000 light-years and jets of heated particles up to two-thirds of that. This indic­ates that it may have once been an act­ive quas­ar or radio galaxy. M89 has an extens­ive and com­plex sys­tem of sur­round­ing shells and plumes, indic­at­ing that has seen one or sev­er­al not­able mergers.

Beside of M89, five addi­tion­al Messi­er galax­ies can be found in this wide­field image: M58, M59, M60, M87 and M90 (see skychart below). The image cov­ers a field of 3.5° x 2.5° just beside of the Markari­an’s Chain.

[descrip­tion from wikipedia]