M88

spiral galaxy · Virgo Cluster · in Coma Berenices

63.6 million light-years from Earth

A regular spiral with many arms, among the brightest in the Virgo Cluster. It is ploughing through the cluster's hot gas toward M87, and the pressure has begun to strip hydrogen from the edge of its leading side.

• about 64 million light-years, uncertain by a fifth · about 160,000 light-years across
• moving away from us at 2,284 km/s

kind

galaxy

catalogue

M88 · NGC 4501

size

161,000 light-years across