This bleak image shows a galaxy called Messier 85, photographed in all its delicate, nebula glory by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Messier 85 passes obliquely through the constellation of Veronica Hair (Berenice’s Hair) and is located about 50 million light-years from Earth. It was first discovered by Charles Messier’s colleague Pierre Mechen in 1781 and was included in Messier’s catalog of celestial bodies.

Messier 85 is interesting in that it lies somewhere between the features of lenticular and elliptical galaxies and appears to interact with its two neighbors: the beautiful spiral NGC 4394, which is out of frame in the upper left corner, and a small elliptical galaxy. The MCG 3-32-38 is placed off-frame in the center below.

The galaxy contains about 400 billion stars, most of which are very old. However, the central region contains a population of relatively young stars that are only a few billion years old; These stars are thought to have formed during a late burst of star formation, possibly caused by the merger of Messier 85 with another galaxy more than four billion years ago. Messier 85 has another potentially odd quality. Almost every galaxy is believed to have a supermassive black hole at its center, but based on velocity measurements of stars in this galaxy, it’s unclear whether Messier 85 contains such a black hole.

This image combines infrared, visible and ultraviolet observations from Hubble’s Wide Angle Camera 3. Source