- Messier 61 (Wikipedia)
Messier 61 (also known as M61, NGC 4303, or the Swelling Spiral Galaxy) is an intermediate barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. It was first discovered by Barnaba Oriani on May 5, 1779, six days before Charles Messier discovered the same galaxy. Messier had observed it on the same night as Oriani but had mistaken it for a comet. Its distance has been estimated to be 45.61 million light years from the Milky Way Galaxy. It is a member of the M61 Group of galaxies, which is a member of the Virgo II Groups, a series of galaxies and galaxy clusters strung out from the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster.
- Alpha (Wikipedia)
Alpha /ˈælfə/ (uppercase Α, lowercase α; Ancient Greek: ἄλφα, álpha, or Greek: άλφα, romanized: álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph aleph, which is the West Semitic word for “ox”. Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin letter A and the Cyrillic letter А.