What It Is
M94, also cataloged as NGC 4736, is a spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici about 16 million light-years away. It is commonly known as the Croc's Eye Galaxy because of its bright central region and surrounding ring.
History
Pierre Mechain discovered M94 in 1781 and reported it to Charles Messier, who added it to the Messier catalog. Modern observations revealed that the bright inner ring is only part of the story: faint outer arms extend far beyond the central region, greatly increasing the galaxy's known size.
Science Notes
- NASA lists M94 as a spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici about 16 million light-years away with an apparent magnitude of 9.0.
- The bright ring around the core is a starburst ring, where gas and dust are compressed into dense clouds and new stars are forming rapidly.
- M94 is unusual because faint outer spiral arms extend far outside the bright core region, and NASA notes that it appears deficient in dark matter compared with many other galaxies.
- distance
- ~16 million light-years
- apparentMagnitude
- +9.0
- constellation
- Canes Venatici
- galaxyType
- Spiral galaxy with a bright starburst ring
- knownDiameter
- formerly estimated around 30,000 light-years; faint outer arms extend much farther
- coordinates
- RA 12h 50m 53s, Dec +41 deg 07 min 14 sec
