Virgo A galaxy (M87), optical image. This elliptical galaxy is located approximately 52 million light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. It


Virgo A galaxy (M87), optical image. This elliptical galaxy is located approximately 52 million light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. It is one of the largest and brightest known galaxies, containing several trillion stars; our own galaxy, the Milky Way, contains no more than 400 billion. The galaxy is unusual for the large numbers of globular star clusters associated with it. These are visible here as faint dots around the galaxy. The large fuzzy blobs are other galaxies in M87's local group.


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Photo credit: © ROBERT GENDLER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
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