Messier 88 (M88)

One of my favorite spiral galaxies, the majestic Messier 88 (M88) is a member of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster and lies about 63 million light years away. I contains a very luminous core regions, thus making it what scientists call a Seyfert Galaxy—one with an active galactic nucleus. The central black hole is estimated to have a mass of close to 100 million suns (25 times more massive than the black hole at the center of the Milky Way).

M88 is rapidly moving toward the center of the Virgo Cluster, a journey that will take it several hundred million years to complete. As it moves, it’s subject to a phenomenon called ram-pressure stripping, where collision with gasses in the intra-cluster medium will push out its free gas material, thus hampering its ability to form new stars.