The Black Eye Galaxy (also called Sleeping Beauty Galaxy; designated Messier 64, M64, or NGC 4826) was discovered by Edward Pigott in March 1779, and independently by Johann Elert Bode in April of the same year, as well as by Charles Messier in 1780. It has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, giving rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy. M64 is well known among amateur astronomers because of its appearance in small telescopes. It is a spiral galaxy in the Coma Berenices constellation. At first glance, M64 seems to be a fairly normal spiral galaxy. As in the majority of galaxies, all of the stars in M64 are orbiting in the same direction, clockwise as seen in the Hubble image. However, recent detailed studies have led to the remarkable discovery that the interstellar gas in the outer regions of M64 rotates in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in the inner regions. The inner region has a radius of only approximately 3,000 light-years, while the outer section extends another 40,000 light-years. This pattern is believed to trigger the creation of many new stars around the boundary separating the 2 regions. A collision of two galaxies has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well as bizarre internal motions. Astronomers believe that the oppositely rotating gas arose when M64 absorbed a satellite galaxy that collided with it, perhaps more than one billion years ago. Active formation of new stars is occurring in the shear region where the oppositely rotating gases collide, are compressed, and contract. Particularly noticeable in the image are hot, blue young stars that have just formed, along with pink clouds of glowing hydrogen gas that fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light from newly formed stars. The small galaxy that impinged on its neighbour has now been almost completely destroyed, its stars either merged with the main galaxy or scattered into space, but signs of the collision persist in the backward motion of gas at the outer edge of M64. ---------- This bright, beautiful spiral galaxy is Messier 64, sometimes known as the Black Eye Galaxy. M64 lies about 17 million light-years distant in the otherwise well- groomed northern constellation Coma Berenices. The dark clouds along the near-side of M64's central region that give the galaxy its black-eye appearance are enormous obscuring dust clouds associated with star formation, but they are not the galaxy's only peculiar feature. Observations show that M64 is actually composed of two concentric, counter-rotating systems of stars, one in the inner 3,000 light-years and another extending to about 40,000 light-years and rotating in the opposite direction. The dusty black eye and bizarre rotation is likely the result of a merger of two different galaxies. ---------- A relatively nearby spiral galaxy, in the constellation Coma Berenices, with a conspicuous dark feature to one side of the bright nucleus; discovered by Johan Bode in 1779, it is also called the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy. A M64 has two counter-rotating systems of stars and gas in its disk: an inner zone, about 3,000 light-years in radius, that rubs along the inner edge of an outer disk, which rotates in the opposite direction at about 300 km/s and extends out to at least 40,000 light-years. This rubbing may explain the vigorous burst of star formation that is currently taking place in the galaxy and is visible as blue knots embedded in the huge dust lane. The strange disk and dust lane, according to one theory, may be the result of material from a former companion galaxy that has been accreted but has yet to settle into the orbital plane of the disk. Another suggestion is that M64 may be the prototype for a class of galaxies called ESWAG, or evolved second wave activity galaxy. According to this idea, the main spiral pattern consists of an intermediate-aged stellar population. Star formation first evolved outside, following the density gradient, manufacturing stars as long as there was enough interstellar matter available, and then slowly died out. As matter was re-released into space from the evolved stars, by way of stellar winds, supernovae, and planetary nebulae, more and more interstellar matter accumulated again, until finally there was enough to enable a new wave of star formation to begin. This second wave, the theory maintains, has now reached the region where the dark dust lane appears.