Elliptical galaxy M86 is passing through some extremely unfriendly territory.

The enormous galaxy has been pulled into the Virgo galaxy cluster at a rate of about three million miles (4.8 million kilometers) an hour, its speed boosted by the gravitational pull of dark matter, hot gas and hundreds of galaxies already within the cluster. Pressure from M86's supersonic flight strips away gaseous material into a tail 200,000 light years long, which will eventually be assimilated into the diffuse hot gas that permeates the entire Virgo cluster.

M86 is different from other galaxies in that it is one of the few moving toward Earth, rather than receding as the universe expands. The Virgo cluster, however, is moving away from Earth at about two million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour, which bogs M86 down, cutting its Earthward motion to a mere one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour.