Celestial Objects
Messier 77
Galaxies
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Messier 77, also designated NGC 1068 and known as the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus, about 35 million light-years from Earth. It was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Mechain in 1780, who first took it for a nebula before communicating the discovery to Charles Messier, who catalogued it; both Messier and William Herschel at first described it as a star cluster, but it is now known to be a galaxy, and it ranks among the brightest Seyfert galaxies, a class marked by an unusually energetic active nucleus, visible from Earth.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.