Messier 63, the Sunflower Galaxy

galaxy · space · spiral · astronomy

Named after flowers. This galaxy is called the Sunflower Galaxy because its spiral arms of stars swirl outward like the seeds and petals of a sunflower bloom. When you look at pictures of it through telescopes, you can see why astronomers thought of that name.

First spotted in 1779. A French astronomer named Pierre Méchain discovered this galaxy, and his friend Charles Messier confirmed it on June 14, 1779. It became object number 63 in Messier's famous list of space objects, which is why we call it M63.

Ancient spiral discovery. In the 1800s, an astronomer named Lord Rosse looked at this galaxy and was one of the first people to see that it had spiral arms. This made M63 super important because scientists didn't know galaxies had this swirling pattern yet.

Incredibly far away. The Sunflower Galaxy is millions and millions of light-years from Earth, which means the light from it takes millions of years to reach us. Even through our best telescopes, it looks like a tiny, fuzzy spiral.

Packed with stars. Like our Milky Way galaxy, M63 contains billions and billions of stars all swirling together in a giant disk. Scientists study it to learn how spiral galaxies work and form over time.