Tag: Galaxies

NGC 2276 from Hubble

The magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 2276 looks a bit lopsided in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. A bright hub of older yellowish stars normally lies directly in the center of most spiral galaxies. But the bulge in NGC 2276 looks offset to the upper left. In reality, a neighboring galaxy to the right of NGC 2276 (NGC 2300, not seen here) is gravitationally tugging on its disk of blue stars, pulling the stars on one side of the galaxy outward to distort the galaxy’s normal fried-egg appearance. […]

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Hickson Compact Group 40 from Hubble

NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 32nd birthday with a stunning look at an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies, called The Hickson Compact Group 40. This menagerie includes three spiral-shaped galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. Somehow, these different galaxies crossed paths in their evolution to create an exceptionally crowded and eclectic galaxy sampler. Caught in a leisurely gravitational dance, the whole group is so crowded that it could fit within a region of space that is less than twice the diameter […]

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Hubble’s Ultra Deep field of Galaxies

Galaxies, galaxies everywhere – as far as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a “deep” core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years. The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies – […]

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A luminous M101 with outer spiral arms

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier’s famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse’s large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. M101 shares this modern telescopic field of view with more distant background galaxies, foreground stars within the Milky Way, and a companion dwarf galaxy NGC […]

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The Christmas Tree Nebula

Interstellar clouds of hydrogen gas and dust abound in this gorgeous skyscape. The 3 degree wide field of view stretches through the faint but fanciful constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. A star forming region cataloged as NGC 2264 is centered, a complex jumble of cosmic gas, dust and stars about 2,700 light-years distant. It mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with dark dust clouds. Where the otherwise obscuring dust clouds lie close to hot, young stars they also reflect starlight, forming blue reflection […]

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Stellar Fireworks in NGC 4449

NGC 4449 has been forming stars for several billion years, but currently it is experiencing a star formation event at a much higher rate than in the past. At the current rate, the gas supply that feeds the stellar production would only last for another billion years or so. The hot, new young stars are illuminating the surrounding gas in a beautiful display. Pink regions represent ionized hydrogen gas, and blue regions represent ionized oxygen gas. Image: Details: Data was taken from the following proposals: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10585, https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10522 […]

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NGC 105 from Hubble

This image from the Hubble Space Telescope displays spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. NGC 105 appears to be plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighbouring galaxy, but this is just the result of the chance alignment of the two objects in the night sky. NGC 105’s elongated neighbor is actually far more distant and remains relatively unknown to astronomers. These misleading conjunctions occur frequently in astronomy, a great example being NGC 3314: https://theastroenthusiast.com/ngc-3314-from-hubble/ Image: Details: All data was […]

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NGC 1385 from Hubble

NGC 1385 is a strange spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax. Originally a normal spiral, interaction with other galaxies nearby distorted its shape. The center of the galaxy was pulled and rotated 90 degrees to the shape it appears in now. Image: Details: All data was taken from the PHANGS-HST observation program. https://phangs.stsci.edu/ Processing: Crop stacking artifacts TGV+MMT denoise each channel Channel combine ArcinH stretch HDR multiscale transform MMT+Curves transformation Dark structure enhance LHE Curves trasnformation

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NGC 1672 from Hubble

NGC 1672 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Dorado. Its massive spiral arms display clusters of hot young blue stars , and beautiful clouds of pink ionized hydrogen gas. Dust lanes throughout the galaxy obscure and redden the light of the stars behind them. NGC 1672’s dynamic core is emphzised by the ring of hydrogen gas and dark dust lanes around it. Image: Details: All data was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys by the following proposal: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10354 Processing

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Hubble’s incredible mosaic of Messier 82

Also known as the Cigar Galaxy because of its appearance, Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy with a superwind. In fact, through supernova explosions and powerful winds from massive stars, the burst of star formation is driving the stunning red outflows. This image highlights emission from filaments of atomic hydrogen gas in reddish hues. The filaments extend for well over 10,000 light-years. I recommend checking out the full 66 megapixel image on Gigapan, where you can zoom into all the awesome filamentary details. http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/227686 Image: Details: All […]

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