In the Center of Spiral M77
What is happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? To find out, astronomers used the
Hubble Space Telescope to peer deep into the
dusty chaos of this
active galactic nucleus
in 1994.
They found a network of filamentary gas and opaque dust that provides only clues as to what central monster had left this mess. Due to the presence of hot ionized gas clouds near the core, changes in brightness that can take less than a week, and the
ultraviolet halo surrounding the whole galaxy, the leading hypothesis is that a supermassive
black hole lies at the center of this
Seyfert Type 2 galaxy. Also known as
NGC 1068, this galaxy lies only about 50 million light years distant and is visible with only a small telescope.