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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

11 Jan

M60, shown here being photobombed by NGC 4647, is a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo♍️. It is this week’s #MessierMonday 👏and to be honest M60's friends are a bit more interesting than it. . .
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Image credits: NASA/ESA

NGC 4647 & M60 form a pair known as Arp 116. From Earth they appear to overlap but there isn’t the associated star formation you usually get with interacting galaxies. This led astronomers to wonder whether there is any actual interaction between the two.
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Hubble to the rescue: 🛰️
Recent studies of images from the HST show that they are starting to interact tidally. This suggests that there is interaction but it’s relatively new.

What about M60 itself?
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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

21 Dec 20

For this week’s #MessierMonday we turn to the constellation Virgo♍️. . . and 62 million light years away.

It’s M58, which is a bar spiralled galaxy. 😍

This image is so beautiful, it looks like a painting.🎨
Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
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M58 is the most distant Messier object. In large binoculars you can see its bright centre. It’s one of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster.

Below shows the galaxy in infrared.

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Image:NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Kennicutt & the SINGS Team

It's designated NGC 4579 in the New General Catalogue, and has other designations but it doesn’t have a special name like some deep sky objects, which is a shame because, as you will see, it is pretty special.

What would you call it?
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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

14 Dec 20

You might recognise this week’s #MessierMonday. It’s a bit of a superstar🤩. Well, technically it’s the remains of a moderately sized star, but it’s quite famous. 😃

Here is M57. The glorious ring nebula.
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Credit: ESA/NASA

The ring nebula is found in the constellation Lyra. The word ‘nebula’ often conjures up images of huge stellar nurseries from giant supernova explosions, but this is a planetary nebula—the remains of a medium-sized star. Like ours.
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They have a less spectacular ending than that of larger stars. That does not take anything away from their beauty though.

The white dot at the centre is a white dwarf. It's no longer undergoing fusion but it’s still incredibly hot and emitting ionising radiation.
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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

7 Dec 20

It’s #MessierMonday, tweeps!
This sparkling beauty is M56, a globular cluster in the constellation Lyra.

The image is from the HST and composed of wavelengths in visible & infrared. Without the infrared component some of that beauty would be obscured.
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Image: NASA/ESA

Messier discovered M56 on the 19th January, in 1779. Even though it’s not difficult to find position-wise it’s difficult to see without a telescope. Even with binoculars it looks a bit like an out-of-focus star. It’s quite dim and doesn’t have an especially bright core.
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Part of the reason for this is it’s close to the galactic plane, which means there’s loads of cosmic dust in the way. The inclusion of infrared in the Hubble image helps reveal parts obscured by the dust.
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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

30 Nov 20

This week, #MessierMonday brings you the Summer Rose Star in the summer constellation Sagittarius. 🌹🌟

Also known as M55, it’s not a star but a globular cluster. In fact, it’s about 100,000 stars!
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Image: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA

M55 was originally discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752 in (what is now) South Africa. With a declination of about -30°, it never gets very far above the horizon for me, even in the summer.

Charles Messier was in Paris, which has a latitude of about 49°N. . .
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. . .so there weren't many good opportunities for him to have a good look at the Summer Rose Star. He was actively searching for this object, rather than just discovering it in the sky & putting it in his catalogue. He finally managed it in 1778.
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Dr Clare Turner

@DrMathsPhysics

23 Nov 20

Last week we looked at the furthest northerly globular cluster discovered and for this week's #MessierMonday we’re going to look at the first globular cluster found OUTSIDE OUR GALAXY!

Say hi to M54. 👋
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Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

M54 belongs to the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy. But in time the Milky Way will gobble the dwarf galaxy up and it will be ours! *Evil laugh*.

It's already passed several times & may have led to new star formation in the Milky Way.
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Image credit: ESA

Messier discovered M54 in 1778 but it wasn’t known it was in a different galaxy until 1994 — over 200 years later!

He described it as a 'very faint nebula. . .its centre is brilliant and it contains no star'. It is brilliant but it's got more than its fair share of stars!

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