Spiral Galaxies

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Photo mosaic of Andromeda galaxy and five regions of interest. A spiral galaxy spreads across the width. It’s tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight, appearing as an extreme oval on its side. Its borders are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images. The outer edges are blue, while the inner two-thirds are yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o'clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. There are about 200 million stars within the image. The background of space is black. There are what appears to be steps toward the bottom, mainly toward the middle, which indicates where no data were taken. Interesting regions: (a) Clusters of bright blue stars embedded within the galaxy; background galaxies seen much farther away; (b) NGC 206, a concentration of bright blue stars; (c) A young cluster of blue newborn stars; (d) The satellite galaxy M32; (e) Dark dust lanes across myriad yellow stars.

NASA’s Hubble Traces Hidden History of Andromeda Galaxy

6 min read

In the years following the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have tallied over 1 trillion galaxies in the…

Article4 days ago
A field filled with distant galaxies. An elliptical galaxy just to the right of image center is surrounded by an Einstein Ring.

Hubble Rings In the New Year

2 min read

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a tiny patch of sky in the constellation Hydra. The stars and galaxies…

Article2 weeks ago
An oval-shaped spiral galaxy. Its core is a compact, glowing blue spot. A bright bar of light, lined with dark reddish dust, extends horizontally to the edge of the disk. A spiral arm emerges from each end of the bar and follows the edge of the disk, lined with blue and red glowing patches of stars, to the opposite end and a little off the galaxy. A scattering of blue stars are between us and the galaxy.

Hubble Spies a Cosmic Eye

2 min read

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy NGC 2566, which sits 76 million light-years away in the…

Article1 month ago
A close-up of a spiral galaxy, seen face-on. Its center is a bright white point, surrounded by a large yellowish oval with thin lines of dust swirling in it. From the sides of the oval emerge two bright spiral arms which wind through the round disk of the galaxy, filled with shining pink spots where stars are forming and more dark reddish dust. Many stars are visible in the foreground, over and around the galaxy.

Hubble Images a Grand Spiral

2 min read

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the glorious spiral galaxy NGC 5643, which is located roughly 40 million light-years…

Article1 month ago
A spiral galaxy filling the view. Its disk holds many bright red spots where stars are forming, dark reddish threads of dust that obscure light, and bluish glowing areas that hold concentrations of older stars. It has a large, glowing yellow oval area at the center, from which two spiral arms wind through the galaxy’s disk. One side of the disk appears rounded (bottom of the image) while the opposite side appears somewhat squared-off (top of the image).

Hubble Spots a Spiral in the Celestial River

2 min read

The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 1637, a spiral galaxy located 38 million light-years from…

Article2 months ago
Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, blue disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). The galaxy has a small bright core at the center. There is an inner disk that is clearer, with speckles of stars scattered throughout. The outer disk of the galaxy is whiteish-blue, and clumpy, like clouds in the sky. There are different colored dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy.

Hats Off to NASA’s Webb: Sombrero Galaxy Dazzles in New Image

5 min read

In a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a galaxy named for its resemblance to a broad-brimmed Mexican…

Article2 months ago

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