September - Very Large Telescope image of the galaxy Messier 61

This breathtaking image shows Messier 61, a glittering galaxy that is home to billions of stars and to a supermassive black hole at its centre. First dis-covered in 1779 and over 50 million light-years away, Messier 61 is part of the Virgo Supercluster of galax-ies, to which our Milky Way also belongs.

The image was taken as part of ESO’s Cosmic Gems Programme, an educational initiative to produce images of intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes.