#messier monday

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Messier Monday: An All-Season Cluster, M35

"But it’s also where the richest concentrations of gas live, and one of the things that gas can do is reflect starlight: and that’s preferentially reflecting blue starlight over all the other frequencies. The galactic “fog” we live in is illuminated by the intense blue light emanating from Messier 35, and while there isn’t enough of it to create a true reflection nebula, there is enough that a telescope like the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) can pick it up."

Oh my god, it's full of stars! Blue, spectacularly blue, unforgettably blue stars!

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Messier's Final Galaxy, M110

"It appeared to me amazing that this faint nebula has escaped the astronomers and myself, since the discovery of the great [nebula] by Simon Marius in 1612, because when observing the great [nebula], the small is located in the same field of the telescope. I will give a drawing of that remarkable nebula in the girdle of Andromeda, with the two small [nebulae] which accompany it."

Galaxies may be the most common type of object identified in the Messier catalogue, and considering that there are at least hundreds of billions of them in the Universe, you might think that Milky Way-type galaxies are everywhere. But it’s not Milky Way-types that make up most of the Universe, it’s tiny little dwarf galaxies. It just so happens that we get one of them at the very end of the Messier catalogue! It’s the very last object in the entire catalogue, added only in 1967 despite being discovered by Messier back in 1773, but it’s got a remarkable story all its own.

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Messier Monday: The Omega Nebula, M17

"The brightest stars here — the blue and red giants — will all be gone in just a few million years, resulting in between one-and-three dozen supernovae that will illuminate not only our skies, but the skies of watchers across our galaxy. In a few tens of millions years more, the entire nebula will be gone as well, having evaporated away completely. At that time, all that will be left is a bright open cluster of thousands of stars, which will slowly dissociate due to gravitational interactions, eventually leading to thousands of isolated star systems not so different from our own: with planets, asteroids, comets, heavy elements, organic molecules, and chances for life."

4.6 billion years ago, a large molecular cloud collapsed in the Milky Way, giving rise to around a thousand or so new stars and star systems, one of which just happened to become our home. But those early days showcased a violent time for our Solar System, and wasn't so different from what's currently taking place in the Omega Nebula, just 5,500 light years away in our own galaxy. Take an in-depth look inside, and catch a glimpse of what our Solar System's environment was like back during its earliest days!

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Messier Monday: The Most Elusive Messier Globular, M55

"Because what you’re looking at isn’t just a faint, diffuse cluster of stars, these are stars that date back to some of the earliest times in the history of our galaxy! Our Sun contains lots of heavy elements: carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulphur, iron, and so on, and it’s the abundance of those heavy elements that allowed rocky planets to form around it. Stars that formed longer ago, and in regions that had fewer generations of stars live-and-die to enrich the interstellar medium, tend to be poorer in these heavy elements, and give us a glimpse of the stars that formed when the Universe was much younger.

Globular clusters tend to have older stars, but Messier 55 has just 1.1% of the heavy elements found in the Sun, one of the most metal-poor globulars known to exist!"

Even though Messier knew about this object since the 1750s, and started looking for it in the 60s, it wasn't until 1778 that he finally found it. Sometimes, the hard work you put in makes the discovery all the more rewarding!

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Messier Monday: A Miniature Marvel, M70

"This might strike you as strange: Messier 69 and Messier 70 are separated by only 1,800 light-years or so, they’re both close to the galactic center and close to the same age, but Messier 69 — which is slightly older than Messier 70 — has five times the heavy elements found in its neighbor! Why would one be so metal-rich and the other so metal-poor? Because Messier 69 always remains close to the galactic center, while Messier 70 moves in-and-out in a highly eccentric orbit!"

A member of the original catalogue of "not-a-comet" objects was where the telescope was pointed when the comet of our lifetime was discovered! Come say hello to Messier 70 this Messier Monday!

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Messier Monday: The Butterfly Cluster, M6

"The orange one may be the brightest, but even a small amount of magnification shows the others shining brilliantly alongside it.

Messier often described stars as “small,” meaning faint, indicating that they appeared small and low-in-brightness in the optics of his own telescope. But these stars are only faint as seen from Earth; in reality, they’re huge and brilliant, even compared to our own Sun!"

What's higher than a butterfly in the sky? The butterfly cluster, 1600 light-years "high"! Happy #MessierMonday, all!

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Messier Monday: The Most Curious Object of All, M24

"Located right in the plane of our galaxy — visible from the northern hemisphere most clearly after sunset on a summer’s night — lies the densest collection of stars the entire sky has to offer. But unlike the other stars that make up objects in the Messier catalogue, this isn’t a cluster we’re looking at, but a glimpse at one of our galaxy’s spiral arms, seen from our vantage point over 10,000 light-years away!

Today’s object is the one-of-a-kind curiosity: Messier 24, the Sagittarius Star Cloud."

Here's what we see when we look through the largest hole in our galaxy!

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Messier Monday: A Globular from the Galactic Center, M9

"Many of these globulars may be as old as or even older than our galaxy itself, and today’s object — Messier 9 — formed no later than 12 billion years ago. Located just 5,500 light-years from the galactic center itself, this clump of stars weighs in at nearly half a million Suns, and is visible with just a pair of binoculars or a small telescope if you know where to look. Even on a Moon-filled summer night like tonight, it can provide you with spectacular sights."

Ever see a globular cluster close to the galactic center? Wait until you see the video to show you what we mean by *close*. A cool quarter-of-a-million stars awaits you in the final image!