Face in Space

Here is a very cool submission (and explanation) from Laura, who works for NASA (yes, THAT NASA!).

One of the web sites I maintain allows users to generate images of the sky using our software and data. We recently added a feature that allows them to submit images to an image gallery. I thought this one was interesting. The center galaxy is called M86 (or Messier 86). M84 is the round one to the right. These galaxies are in a group of galaxies called the Virgo cluster. Charles Messier observed and catalogued objects in the late 1700s.