The Fantastical Armadillo

  A nocturnal insectivorous mammal that has large claws for digging and a body covered in bony plates. G+ Refugee !  

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And when it gets to 30 years and you’re still feeling that way, then you know you’ve arrived ! 

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The truth is found in Sweden !

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Messier Objects

M95 - Barred Spiral Galaxy

What you’re looking at here is 40 billion stars as they were 32 million years ago. M95 is in the constellation of Leo but forms part of a small sub group known as the M96 group, which is part of the greater virgo supercluster group.

Observations with the Hubble Telescope have estimated that there are 100 billion galaxies in our universe, and probably closer to 200 billion as our telescope technology improves. 

So there are more galaxies in the universe than there are stars in this picture, and each carrying a similar number of stars. 

M95 shows signs of clumped star formation in various regions of the galaxy, some that are clustered and could be the formation of globular clusters. 

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Messier Objects

M94 - Spiral Galaxy

This spiral galaxy continues to puzzle astronomers to the formation of what appears to be two sets of spiral arms, an inner set and an outer set. Various suggestions have been put forward from galaxy merger or consummation to interaction with larger gravitational objects, but all fail to fully explain it. 

The inner core is in a state of Starburst, with heavy star creation occurring, however a recent study also indicated the outer arms have a high rate of star birth too. 

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Messier Objects

M93 - Open Cluster

Located 3,300 light years from our Sun in the constellation of Puppis, this open cluster has a rich abundance of stars and is estimated to be around 380 million years old. This includes a number of spectroscopic binary systems (stars that orbit each other, of different colour) which is fairly rare in such clusters as the majority of stars in these relatively young clusters are blue giants. 

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Messier Objects

M92 Globular Cluster

At 27,000 light years from our Sun in the constellation of Hercules, this globular cluster is amongst the brightest and on very clear nights, visible with the naked eye as a smudge. It’s actually 33,000 stars all packed in together, most of which are incredibly ancient (10-12 billion years old) and as a result, made up of almost entirely Hydrogen and Helium, with little in the way of more complex atoms. 

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Messier Objects

M91 Barred spiral galaxy

Generally speaking, spiral galaxies are a hot bed of star formation,however as far as spiral galaxies go, M91 is considered anaemic with only a small amount of star formation on the arms and towards the centre.

Part of the reason for this is that M91 is part of the virgo super cluster, and is therefore losing a lot of the gas that would otherwise have formed new stars.

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Messier Objects

M90 - Spiral Galaxy

M90 is a member of the Virgo super cluster and sits 58 million light years from our Sun in the constellation of Virgo. Two things stand out about the galaxy, firstly the visible, the outer parts of the spiral galaxies arms appear smoothed and lacking star formation, while the inner regions are heavily active. It appears as a member of the Virgo cluster, a lot of matter is being stripped from the galaxy into the intergalactic medium of the super cluster, towards M87, which has stunted the star formation significantly to the point of leaving just a haze stars left.

Secondly, the galaxy appears to be moving towards us, whilst most galaxies we observe show the opposite as the universe expands, they are moving away from us. 

The assumption is, that the pull towards M87 is such, that the galaxy is simply orbiting the super cluster and at this moment is being pulled towards us, and that will end when it orbits back around the other side in millions of years time.