In fact, it now appears to be residue
from the collision of two galaxies.
This has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well
as bizarre internal motions.
Messier 64 (M64) has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust
in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, (giving rise to its nicknames
of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy).
Fine details of the dark band are revealed in this image of the
central portion of M64 obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope.
M64 is well known among amateur astronomers because of its appearance
in small telescopes. It was first cataloged in the 18th century by the
French astronomer Messier. Located in the northern constellation Coma
Berenices*, M64 resides roughly 17 million light-years from Earth.
At first glance, M64 appears to be a fairly normal pinwheel-shaped
spiral galaxy. As in the majority of galaxies, all of the stars
in M64 are rotating in the same direction, clockwise as seen in
the Hubble image. However, detailed studies in the 1990's led to
the remarkable discovery that the interstellar gas in the outer
regions of M64 rotates in the opposite direction from the gas and
stars in the inner regions
* COMA BERENICES
The name derives from the beautiful wife of the ancient Egyptian king
Ptolemy III, who promised to sacrifice her long golden hair to Aphrodite
if her spouse returned safely from battle. He did return and so she placed
her hair in the temple.
The locks disappeared and the king was about to put the temple
guards to death when the court astronomer relayed a message, from
Aphrodite, who was so pleased with the hair that she had placed
it in the sky for all to look on.
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