AI Insight
Messier 64, known as the Black Eye Galaxy, features a distinctive dark dust band obscuring its bright core and exhibits unusual internal motion where outer region gas rotates in the opposite direction from inner stars and gas. This composite image released March 20, 2026, combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists believe this counter-rotating motion resulted from M64 merging with a smaller satellite galaxy over one billion years ago.
Why it matters
This galaxy provides crucial evidence for understanding how galactic mergers affect long-term structure and dynamics of spiral galaxies. The counter-rotating gas offers a rare natural laboratory for studying the aftermath of galactic collisions and their role in galaxy evolution.
This March 20, 2026, image of Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is a composite view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. It shows Messier 64 captured at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths by Webb, while Hubble’s image shows the galaxy in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light.
Messier 64 is characterized by its bizarre internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this spiral galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in its inner regions. This strange behavior may be the result of a merger between M64 and a satellite galaxy over a billion years ago.
Image credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, F. Belfiore (European Southern Observatory – Germany), J. Lee (Space Telescope Science Institute), A. Leroy (The Ohio State University), and D. Thilker (The Johns Hopkins University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Source: Black Eye Galaxy