Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region, it spans 100 thousand light-years or so, making it about the size of our own Milky Way. M96, also known as NGC 3368, is known to be about 35 million light-years distant and a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group. The featured image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The reason for M96’s asymmetry is unclear — it could have arisen from gravitational interactions with other Leo I group galaxies, but the lack of an intra-group diffuse glow seems to indicate few recent interactions. Galaxies far in the background can be found by examining the edges of the picture.
#astronomy #astronomer #astrophotography #space #spacefact #science #sciencebitch #universe #universetoday #universeofenergy #NASA #hubble #amazing #interesting by astrophotographyarchive
Ähnliche Beiträge
NGC 3190 is a spiral galaxy located about 80 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Leo, the lion. The galaxy, spanning almost 75,000 light-years across, is the largest member of a compact group of galaxies called the Hickson 44 group, which is one of the closest to…
5. Januar 2016
In "nasa"
Edge-on NGC 3628 Image Credit: Alessandro Falesiedi Sharp telescopic views of magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy. The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away…
5. Januar 2016
In "nasa"
Arp 94 Image Credit: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs.) Collaboration: David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA, IAC), et al. This telescopic snapshot records a cosmic moment in the tumultuous lives of large spiral galaxy NGC 3227 and smaller elliptical NGC 3226. Catching them in the middle of an ongoinggravitational dance, the sensitive imaging also follows faint…
2. Januar 2016
In "nasa"