Monday, May 19, 2025

Markarian's Chain is a string-like group of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster, located about 70 million light-years from Earth. It is called a "chain" because, when observed from Earth, the cluster appears arranged along a gently curved line. It is named after Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who discovered their shared motion in the early 1960s. The region includes multiple galaxies, mainly elliptical ones, among which the NGC 4435-4438 pair—nicknamed “The Eyes of Virgo”—stands out. The names of the main visible galaxies are shown in the outer frames. The image was taken from Casalgrande, in the Po Valley—one of the most light-polluted areas in Europe—and required about 8 hours of exposure time.