Triaxial giant elliptical galaxy M87 (IMAGE)
Caption
A photo of the huge elliptical galaxy M87 [left] is compared to its three-dimensional shape as gleaned from meticulous observations made with the Hubble and Keck telescopes [right]. Because the galaxy is too far away for astronomers to employ stereoscopic vision, they instead followed the motion of stars around the center of M87, like bees around a hive. This created a three-dimensional view of how stars are distributed within the galaxy.
Credit
Illustration by NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted/STScI, Frank Summers/STScI; Science by Chung-Pei Ma/UC Berkeley
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