M86

M86 — galaxy, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.

A great lens of old stars plunging through the cluster gas so fast it is being stripped bare, trailing a 400,000-light-year plume torn from its insides.

Type
Lenticular / elliptical (S0)
Distance
52 million light-years
Note
Falling through Virgo toward us at 240 km/s

Seeing M86 in real time

M86 is placed at its true position on the sky and at its real measured distance, not as a flat backdrop. Fly out from the Sun in the live 3D view and watch it change from a point of light into structure as you approach, with the scale bar showing just how far out you have travelled.

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Interactive universe
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