The new photo from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals the delicious spiral galaxy Messier 95 (M 95 or NGC 3351). He lives in the constellation of Leo at a distance of 35 million years from us. In 1781, Pierre Mechain found this vortex spiral, and after 4 days his friend cataloged it - the French astronomer Charles Messier.
It is important to note that Messier was primarily a comet hunter. But he was disappointed that many confuse them with other space objects and formations that look like comets. To help other astronomers avoid confusion, Messier created the famous catalog of objects.
So, there is definitely not a comet in front of you, but the spiral galaxy M 95. The center is cut by a remarkable bar surrounded by an inner ring, where the process of star birth is now taking place. Our Milky Way galaxy is also considered an example of a spiral with a bar. Messier 95 not only has a stellar nursery, but also accommodates explosive, dying, massive stars - supernovae. In March 2016, in the outer areas of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy M 95, a beautiful supernova SN 2012aw was noticed. When its light disappeared, astronomers compared the observations of the area before and after the explosion to see which star was missing (the predecessor star). In the specific case, this is a large red supergiant, which is 26 times more massive than the Sun.
