#m94

[quiltofstars]

The Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94 // MikeY_Astro

[thefirststarr]

The above image features a new type of astronomical object which astronomers have nicknamed Cloud-9 and is actually a starless, gas-rich, dark matter cloud- a remnant of early galaxy formation. This phenomenon has been named a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud or “RELHIC” (H I standing for neutral hydrogen).

Most of the universe’s mass is thought to be dark matter, but it is difficult to detect it because of its lack of light emission. Cloud-9 gives astronomers a rare look at a cloud dominated by dark matter. The diffuse magenta is radio data collected from the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA). The circle is the peak of the radio emission and where the search for stars was focused. The objects that appear within its boundaries are background galaxies.

Before Hubble, ground based telescopes only allowed scientists to think that this was a faint dwarf galaxy whose stars could not be seen. However, thanks to Hubble, it can be seen for what it really is.

It is thought that RELHICs are dark matter clouds that couldn’t accumulate enough gas from stars. The cloud may eventually form a galaxy in the future if it grows more massive, however how that would occur is under speculation.

It is located on the outskirts of a nearby spiral galaxy (M94) and is about 14 million lights years from Earth.

Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScl), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay (University of Milano-Bicocca); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScl)

[cosmonautroger]

M94

[spacewonder19]

Starburst Ring M94

[zespaceblog]

Random Messier object - M94 - Cat's Eye Galaxy

M94 is a spiral galaxy 16 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Canes Venatici. It's a number of notable features, one being that 25% of the galaxies mass falls in an outer halo around the galaxy.

The inner spiral section appears to have a diamond ring around it, although this is the boundary where huge amounts of star formation are occurring, making blue giants that clustered together look like diamonds. The structure is very much attached to the spiral flow, so isn't a ring, but appears to be because of the environment found at that distance from the galactic centre, more favourable to star formation.

The yellowish colour of the centre is due to the age of the stars, older more long lasting stars like our own Sun, that can make it into billions of years, and have the time to migrate from their original birth locations further out.

Additional interest of M94 is that its rotation appears to have little or not account of dark matter, unlike most observable galaxies, leading many to use it as a poster galaxy for MOND or other theories that don't require dark matter to explain why almost every other galaxy behaves as if 90% of the mass is hidden on the outer edges of the galaxy. Interestingly, even MOND cannot properly explain the behaviour of M94, so it's very much an outlier in terms of spin, but an interesting study none the less.

[beautyandtheuniverse]

APOD: 2015 May 26 - Starburst Galaxy M94. By Leonardo Orazi

[spinningblueball]

Starburst Galaxy Messier 94

[1five1two]

M94 Starburst Galaxy.