Messier 63: The Sunflower Galaxy

Say hello to other worlds roughly 30 million light-years away. A spiral galaxy classified as 'flocculent' (which I think means 'fluffy'), discovered by French astronomer Pierre Méchain in the 1700s. I'm reading a book that has the original observational notes for the Messier catalog:

"...It contains no stars, & the slightest light to illuminate the micrometer wires made it disappear. Close to it there's an 8th magnitude star, which precedes the nebula in right ascension."

There were apparently a lot of 'nebulae' in the Messier catalog that today we now know are galaxies due to improvements in optics, image sensors and astronomers. Actually, people were not aware that other galaxies even existed until December 30, 1924, when Edwin Hubble discovered that Andromeda (Messier 31) is really a galaxy. Only then did people begin to grasp that the Milky Way was just one among many: Our world got a lot bigger that day...