Messier 88

Messier 88 (also known as NGC 4501 ) is a 9.6 likes bright spiral galaxy with a surface area of 6.9 '× 3.7 ' in the constellation Coma Berenices. In the Hubble sequence of galaxy of Sbc type is assigned. It was discovered on 18 March 1781 by Charles Messier, along with seven other galaxies of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. The galactic plane of M88 is inclined at about 30 degrees to the line of sight, making it the Andromeda Nebula, which is also of type Sb, gaining a certain similarity.

How many spiral galaxies of Virgohaufens M88 has a high peculiar velocity, ie moves at great speed towards the center of the pile. The redshift provides a radial velocity of about 2000 km / s, so that the galaxy is moving away with about 700 km / s from the cluster center.

On 28 May 1999, the Type Ia Supernova 1999cl appeared in M88. In their discovery the following day the supernova had an apparent magnitude of 16.4 mag and reached its maximum on 12 June with a brightness of 13.4 mag. Since Type I supernovae are among the best standard candles in cosmology, this event was of great interest in terms of distance determination for the Virgo cluster.

UV absorption, GALEX