May 20, 2009--The giant galaxy Messier 87 (pictured at lower left) isn't so giant after all, according to new observations from the European Space Observatory's Very Large Telescope. (Here, dark spots take the place of digitally removed, bright stars that had been in the foreground of the picture.)

The galaxy's halo of stars has been stripped away by unknown forces and has a diameter of about a million light-years—much smaller than astronomers had expected.

Messier 87 might get smaller still—it appears to be on a collision course with another galaxy, the telescope revealed.