Messier 77

Common card · No. 304467

Messier 77 (M77), also known as NGC 1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It is 35 million light-years (11 Mpc) away from Earth, and was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780, who originally described it as a nebula. Méchain then communicated his discovery to Charles Messier, who subsequently listed the object in his catalog. Both Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster. Today, however, the object is known to be a galaxy. It is one of the brightest Seyfert galaxies visible from Earth and has a D25 isophotal diameter of about 27.70 kiloparsecs (90,000 light-years). Messier 77 is considered to part of a galaxy group known as LGG 73. It consists of at least 7 galaxies, which are NGC 1055, NGC 1073, UGCA 44, UGC 2302, UGC 2275 and UGC 2162.

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