images

Central part of the Virgo cluster

by

E.Mouquet/Novapix

Reference

a-amg02-00051

Date

2007-01-17

Located about 70 million light years away, the Virgo cluster is a gigantic collection of several thousand galaxies that dominate our local part of the universe. Markarian's Chain of galaxies is in the center, including giant elliptical galaxies M86 and M84. M87 is another giant elliptical galaxy at lower left in the photo.