2026 May 23

Messier 2
* Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.
https://spacetelescope.org/
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4564

Explanation:
After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster's central 40 light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky Way, also known as NGC 7089, is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption, was recently found to be associated with Messier 2.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180104.html
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-2/
http://www.messier.seds.org/m/m002.html
https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05949
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240927.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260523.html

#space #messier #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #physics #NASA #ESA #apod

Messier 1

by Andrea Gianopoulos

Better known as the Crab Nebula, Charles Messier originally mistook Messier 1 for Halley’s Comet, which inspired him to create his famous catalog of objects.

In 1054, Chinese astronomers took notice of a “guest star” that was, for nearly a month, visible in the daytime sky. The “guest star” they observed was actually a supernova explosion, which gave rise to the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide remnant of the violent event.

With an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, the Crab Nebula can be spotted with a small telescope and is best observed in January. The nebula was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731, and later observed by Charles Messier who mistook it for Halley’s Comet. Messier’s observation of the nebula inspired him to create a catalog of celestial objects that might be mistaken for comets.

This large mosaic of the Crab Nebula was assembled from 24 individual exposures captured by Hubble over three months. The colors in this image do not match exactly what we would see with our eyes but yield insight into the composition of this spectacular stellar corpse. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The blue in the filaments in the outer part of the nebula represents neutral oxygen. Green is singly ionized sulfur, and red indicates doubly ionized oxygen. These elements were expelled during the supernova explosion.

A rapidly spinning neutron star (the ultra-dense core of the exploded star) is embedded in the center of the Crab Nebula. Electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around the star’s magnetic field lines produce the eerie blue light in the interior of the nebula. The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that make it appear to pulse 30 times per second as it rotates.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-1/

#space #messier #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #physics #NASA #ESA #apod