M 110

Elliptical Galaxy M110 (NGC 205), type E6p,

A Satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31

M31, together with M32,

and thus a member of the Local Group.

Curiously, this galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier on August 10, 1773,

of the “Great Andromeda Nebula” and its companions published in 1807, but

Messier did never himself include this object in his catalog, due to unknown

reasons, perhaps a certain sloppiness in recording.

added finally by Kenneth Glyn Jones in 1966. Independent of Messier’s

discovery, Caroline Herschel discovered

M110 on August 27, 1783, little more than 10 years after Messier, and

William Herschel numbered it H V.18.

The small elliptical galaxy M110 is at about the same distance as the

Andromeda galaxy M31, about 2.9 million light years. It is of type E5 or E6

and is designated “peculiar” because it shows some unusual dark structure

(probably dust clouds); it is now often classified as a dwarf spheroid galaxy,

not a generic elliptical one (this would make it the first ever known dwarf

spheroid, of course).

Its mass was estimated to be between 3.6 and 15 billion solar masses.

Apparently, despite its comparatively small size, this dwarf elliptical galaxy

has also a remarkable system of 8 globular clusters in a halo around it.