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Hubble Sees Galaxy on Verge of Destruction
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Under the gravitational grasp of a large gang of galaxies, the small bluish galaxy NGC 1427A is plunging headlong into the Fornax cluster. The apparently small, perfect spiral galaxy in the upper left is in the distant background.
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Mysterious Stars Surround Andromeda's Black Hole
Credit: © 2002 R. Gendler, Photo by R. Gendler
The Andromeda Galaxy photographed with a 12.5-inch telescope by amateur astronomer Robert Gendler.
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Ongoing Growth: Galaxies Grab Intergalactic Gas
Credit: NASA/CXC/U. Copenhagen/K.Pedersen et al, Optical: Palomar DSS
A halo of hot, infalling gas surrounding galaxy NGC 5746. It was detected with NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope.
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Space Dust More Pervasive Than Thought
Credit: Ohio State University
Spiral galaxies seen edge-on often show dark lanes of interstellar dust blocking light from the galaxy’s stars, as in this image of the galaxy NGC 4565 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II). The dust is formed in the outer regions of dying stars, and it drifts off to mix with interstellar gas. The new analysis of quasar colors shows that galaxies also expel dust to distances of several hundred thousand light years, ten times farther than the visible edge of the galaxy seen in this image. The thin haze of intergalactic dust dims and reddens the light from background quasars.
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Black Hole Belts Out Discordant Musical
Credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/W.Forman et al.
This Chandra image of M87 shows high energy X-rays. The faint, outer ring is about 85,000 light years across and gives an unambiguous signature of a weak shock wave (like a sonic boom) generated by an outburst from the supermassive black hole at the center of M87. The properties of the shock, including the change in temperature and density in the gas, are consistent with classical physics. The bright yellow, inner ring may be the gas just outside the "piston" that is powering the shock further out, and the ring in the middle was probably produced by another outburst.
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Galaxy's Ghostly Arms Finally Explained
Credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Maryland/A.S. Wilson et al. Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; VLA & NRAO/AUI/NSF
In this composite image of spiral galaxy M106, optical data is shown as yellow, radio data from the Very Large Array appears as purple, X-ray data from Chandra is coded blue and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope appears red. The anomalous arms appear as purple and blue emission.
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Tiny Galaxies Hide Dark Secret
Credit: P-A Duc/CEA-CNRS/NRAO-NASA
Galaxy NGC5291 (orange, at the center) and its ring of debris (in blue) as seen by the Very Large Array interferometer. Researchers have found evidence for the presence of dark matter in dense star-forming groups (shown in red), where 'recycled' dwarf galaxies exist.
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Galaxy Sports Vast Comet-Like Tail
Credit: NASA/CXC/MSU/M. Sun et al.
This composite image shows a tail that has been created as a galaxy plunges into the galaxy cluster Abell 3627. X-rays from Chandra (blue) and optical light (white and red) from the SOAR telescope show that as the galaxy plummets, it sheds material and forming stars behind it in a tail that stretches over 200,000 light years long. This demonstrates that stars can form well outside of their parent galaxy.
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Old Galaxy Finds Fountain of Youth
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A big galaxy is stealing gas right off the "back" of its smaller companion in this new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Image
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Nature vs. Nurture in the Cosmos
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Las Campanas
A classic spiral galaxy with open arms and vigorous star formation, the young galaxy NGC 300 is located about seven million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. Image is from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
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Spiral Galaxy Winds Backwards
Credit: NASA
This color image of NGC4622 shows the strong inner counter-clockwise outward winding single arm and the strong outer clockwise outward winding pair of arms.
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Hubble Photographs Dozens of Colliding Galaxies
Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)
Markarian 273 is a galaxy with a bizarre structure that vaguely resembles a toothbrush. The "handle" of the brush is about 130 thousand light-years long and is strongly indicative of a merger between two galaxies. Markarian 273 has an intense region of starburst, where 60 solar masses of new stars are born each year. The galaxy is located 500 million light-years away from Earth.
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New View: Universe Suddenly Twice as Bright
Credit: C.Howk (JHU), B.Savage (U. Wisconsin), N.A.Sharp (NOAO)/WIYN/NOAO/NSF
Dust clogs the disks of spiral galaxies, obscuring their light. When galaxies are edge-on, such as NGC 891 shown here, dust is especially prominent.
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Black Holes Key to Spiral Arm Hugs
Credit: NASA/Swift Science Team/Stefan Immler
The black hole at the center of the Triangulum Galaxy has a
mass that is no more than 1,500 times the mass of the sun. Its spiral
arms are loosely wound at an angle of 43 degrees.
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Milky Way's Halo Loaded with Star Streams
Credit: K. Johnston, J. Bullock
A theoretical model of a galaxy like the Milky Way, showing trails of
stars torn from disrupted satellite galaxies that have merged with the
central galaxy. The structures seen in the SDSS-II star maps support
this prediction of a complicated outer Milky Way. The region shown is
about one million light years on a side; the sun is just 25,000 light
years from the center of the Milky Way and would appear close to the
center of this picture.
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Space 'Ropes' Hang Together by Threads
Credit: A.C. Fabian/R.M. Johnstone/J.S. Sanders/C.J. Conselice/C.S. Crawford/J,S, Gallagher III/E.Zweibel
A red, green and blue image of NGC 1275, which was created by combining the data using Hubble's three Advanced Camera for Survey filters. The three images were processed with the method of Lupton et al (2004) to preserve the colour of objects avoiding saturation. The detail in the ilaments was enhanced by using the unsharp mask filter in the GNU Image Manipulation Tool.
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Nearby Galaxy Nearly Invisible
Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Segue 1 is 50 times dimmer than the star cluster pictured above but is 1000 times more massive, meaning most of its mass must be made up of dark matter.
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An Arp to Arp Talk
Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Livio (STScI).
A pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 147 was captured by Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. One of the galaxies (left-most galaxy shown) is relatively undisturbed, apart from a smooth ring of starlight. The other galaxy (right-most in image) exhibits a clumpy, blue ring of intense star formation.
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Mystery of Rapid Star Birth Solved
Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA) Acknowledgment: P. Shopbell (Caltech)
This image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showcases the brilliant core of NGC 1569, one of the most active galaxies in our local neighborhood. The entire core is 5,000 light-years wide.
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Black Holes Burp Big Bubbles
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.); Radio (NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al); Optical (SDSS)
This composite image shows the hot gas around the elliptical galaxy M84 in an X-ray image (blue) and a radio image (red). The bubbles (some visible in the hot gas) were generated by jets coming out of M84's central black hole. The top bubble (blue) is bursting and the hot relativistic gas, shown in red, is spilling out.
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Hubble Photographs Cosmic Fountain
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
This interacting group contains several galaxies (called Arp 194), along with a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas and dust that stretches over 100,000 light-years.
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Find the Sombrero Galaxy
Credit: ESO
Composite of three images is one of the most detailed ever of the Sombrero Galaxy.
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Galaxy Cluster X-ray Revealed
Credit: NASA/STScI/Fabian, et al.
The massive radio galaxy PKS 0745-191, for which the cluster is named, appears at the center of this Hubble Space Telescope image. The picture forms the inset in the Suzaku image above.
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A Real Whopper: Black Hole Is Most Massive Known
Credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/W. Forman et al./NRAO/AUI/NSF/W. Cotton;/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler
This composite of visible (or optical), radio, and X-ray data reveals the giant elliptical galaxy M87.
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Spitzer Telescope Warms Up to Its New Mission
Credit: NASA/Spitzer; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The nearly edge-on galaxy NGC 5746 is partially obscured in visible-light photographs, making accurate classification impossible. This image from the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals the galaxy's true nature, showing a dramatic ring of warm dust surrounding the galaxy's bright nucleus.
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Black Hole Creates Eye in Middle of Cosmic Storm
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/The SINGS Team (SSC/Caltech)
In the Spitzer image of NGC 1097, infrared light with shorter wavelengths is blue, while longer-wavelength light is red.
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Nearby Galaxy Is Almost Milky Way Look-alike
Credit: ESO
This image is an edge-on view of the spiral galaxy NGC 4945, which is thought to look much like the Milky Way, but with a brighter center that harbors a supermassive black hole. Sites of active star formation in the image appear bright pink.
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Best UV View Ever of Andromeda Galaxy
Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
This mosaic of M31 merges 330 individual images taken by the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA's Swift spacecraft. It is the highest-resolution image of the galaxy ever recorded in the ultraviolet. The image shows a region 200,000 light-years wide and 100,000 light-years high (100 arcminutes by 50 arcminutes).
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Strange Shapes Seen In Milky Way's Tiny Neighbor
Credit: ESO
Astronomers obtained this portrait of Barnard’s Galaxy using the Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. Also known as NGC 6822, this dwarf irregular galaxy is one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors.
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New Telescope Photographs Edge-on Galaxy
Credit: Willard L. Eccles Observatory
This photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 891 was the "first light" image made by the 32-inch reflecting telescope at the University of Utah's new, $860,000 Willard L. Eccles Observatory, located in southern Utah about 250 miles from the university's Salt Lake City campus. The observatory will be used for research, student education and even public star parties once it is equipped for remote-control operations.
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Hubble Spies Galaxy's Big Bulge
Credit: NASA & ESA
This Hubble Space Telescope image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4710 shows a faint, ethereal "X"-shaped bulge at the galaxy's center.
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Giant Cannibal Galaxy's Last Meal
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky
This image of the central parts of Centaurus A reveals the parallelogram-shaped remains of a smaller galaxy that was gulped down about 200 to 700 million years ago. The image is based on data collected with the SOFI instrument on ESO’s New Technology Telescope at La Silla.
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Mystery Behind Galaxy Shapes Solved
Credit: ESO
ESO's Wide Field Imager has captured the intricate swirls of the spiral galaxy Messier 83, a smaller look-alike of our own Milky Way. Shining with the light of billions of stars and the ruby red glow of hydrogen gas, it is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy, whose shape has led to it being nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel.
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Gorgeous Hubble Photo Shows Stretched-Out Galaxy
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration.
An image of the stretched-out Messier 66 galaxy, as seen through three filters on the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Mysterious New Object Discovered in Space
Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
This image of the galaxy M82 was taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Scientists now think the galaxy is home to an oddity known as a micro-quasar.
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Hidden Galaxy Photographed by Peeping Space Telescope
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
A leggy cosmic creature, actually the "hiding galaxy" IC 342, comes out of hiding in this new infrared view from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
Full Story.
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Hot Stars Found Hidden in Galaxy's Dusty Embrace
Credit: ESO
This infrared image of the nearby galaxy Messier 83 was taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
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Galaxy's 'Superbubble' Spawns Star-Forming Frenzy
Credit: Gemini Observatory
The starburst galaxy NGC 1313, as imaged by the Gemini South 8-meter telescope in Chile using narrow-band filters in the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. NGC 1313 has a well-defined bar with twisted, asymmetric spiral arms. While pronounced star formation appears along the outer reaches of both arms, it’s much stronger to the northeast (left on the new Gemini image). Other regions of star formation are nearby, especially to the southwest (right).
Full Story.
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Cosmic Hit-and-Run Gives Galaxy Starry Tail
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer found a tail behind a galaxy called IC 3418. The star-studded tail can be seen as detected by the space telescope in ultraviolet light. The tail has escaped detection in visible light.
Full Story.
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Super Bright Star Outshines Galaxy In Cosmic Photo
The galaxy PGC 39058 is located about 14 million light-years away from Earth, and contains millions of stars – many of them not unlike the bright star that appears in the foreground. This striking Hubble image shows that the nearby star easily outshines the more distant PGC 39058 galaxy.
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Distant Spiral Galaxy May Reveal Clues About Our Milky Way
This striking new image, taken with the powerful HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile, shows NGC 1365. This beautiful barred spiral galaxy is part of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, and lies about 60 million light-years from Earth.
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Spiral Galaxies May Die From Within
This beautiful image is from the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the galaxy NGC 1300 which is a classic example of a barred spiral.
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Andromeda
Credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/J.Fritz, U.Gent/XMM-Newton/EPIC/W. Pietsch, MPE
This image of the Andromeda Galaxy is a composite of an infrared photo from ESA's Herschel space telescope and the XMM-Newton’s X-ray telescope. The infrared frame shows rings of dust that trace gaseous reservoirs where new stars are forming and the X-ray image shows stars approaching the ends of their lives.
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The Whirlpool Galaxy
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Regan and B. Whitmore (STScI), R. Chandar (University of Toledo), S. Beckwith (STScI), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
The Whirlpool Galaxy, AKA spiral galaxy M51, sports a new look when seen in near-infrared light by the Hubble Space Telescope. With most of the starlight removed, this image provides the sharpest view of the dust structure of the galaxy to date.
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Messier 82
Credit: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard et al.
Messier 82 (M82) galaxy, known as a starburst galaxy, produces stars at rate tens or even hundreds of times faster than in normal galaxies. Astronomers believe that a brush with neighboring galaxy M81 millions of years ago, creating shock waves, set off this blast of star formation.
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NGC 157
Credit: ESO
In this image of galaxy NGC 157, the spiral arms appear to form a giant "S". The HAWK-I instrument (High-Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager) on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile produced this picture of the galaxy. NCG 157 lies distantly in the constellation of Cetus (the Sea Monster).
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NGC 2841
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration; M. Crockett and S. Kaviraj (Oxford University, UK), R. O'Connell (Univ. of Virginia), B. Whitmore (STScI) and the WFC3 Scientific Oversight Committee.
The galaxy NGC 2841 — shown here in a Hubble image — currently has a relatively low star formation rate compared to other spirals. It is one of several nearby galaxies that have been chosen for a new study, in which scientists are observing a variety of different stellar nursery environments and birth rates.
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Dust in the Wind(ing Spiral Arms)
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
This WISE image shows dust speckling the Andromeda galaxy's spiral arms. The hot dust, heated by newborn stars, outlines the thin arms to the center of the galaxy.
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NGC 5584
Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Riess (STScI/JHU), L. Macri (Texas A&M University), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Blue young stars shine in the spiral arms of galaxy NGC 5584, as shown by this Hubble Space Telescope image. Thin, dark dust lanes flow from the yellowish core, filled with older stars. The reddish dots throughout the image are largely background galaxies. Several exposures taken in visible light between January and April 2010 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 combine to make this image.
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NGC 1275 Galaxy in Perseus Cluster
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 1275, the galaxy located in the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster. The red threadlike filaments are composed of cool gas suspended by a magnetic field.
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Galaxy NGC 4214
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: R. O’Connell (University of Virginia) and the WFC3 Scientific Oversight Committee
Galaxy NGC 4214 is dominated by a huge glowing cloud of hydrogen gas in which new stars are being born. A heart-shaped hollow — possibly galaxy NGC 4214’s most eye-catching feature — can be seen at the centre of this.
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NGC 5128 Seen in Visible Light
Credit: Capella Observatory
The elliptical galaxy NGC 5128, host of the Centaurus A radio source, as it appears in visible light. The galaxy is located about 12 million light-years away and is one of the closest that sports an active supermassive black hole
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UGC 9128
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Astronomers class UGC 9128, shown here, as a dwarf irregular galaxy, It lacks a well-defined shape, and probably contains only around one hundred million stars, far fewer than are found in a large spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way. UGC 9128 lies about 8 million light-years away, in the constellation of Boötes (The Herdsman).
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Messier 90
Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum
Monday, May 30, 2011: Spiral galaxy Messier 90, in the constellation Virgo, displays obvious interaction with the nearby smaller gallery. The galaxy's core has moved from the center of the disk, and the spiral arms show strong disturbances in several places.
—Tom Chao
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Milky Way Twin Galaxy
Credit: ESO
This picture of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 6744, which could be the Milky Way's twin, was taken at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile.
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NGC 634
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Spiral galaxy NGC 634 appears to have a perfect spiral structure, as shown by this Hubble Space Telescope photograph. However, recently a type Ia supernova known as SN2008a was spotted in the galaxy, and it briefly rivalled the brilliance of its entire host galaxy. However, it can no longer be seen in this image, which was taken around a year and a half later.
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NGC 3244
Credit: ESO
Friday, June 3, 2011: This new image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3244 was taken with the help of the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, during his visit to ESO’s Paranal Observatory on April 6, 2011. The Czech Republic joined ESO in 2007. To the right of the galaxy, an unremarkable foreground star in our own Milky Way, TYC 7713-527-1, shines brightly. The galaxy resides at a distance of about 90 million light years, while the star lies thousands of times closer within our own galaxy.
—Tom Chao
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New Supernova in Galaxy M51
Credit: Weizmann Institute
Photo of a new supernova in the nearby galaxy M51. Researchers noticed the explosion between May 31 and June 1, 2011.
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Markarian 739 or NGC 3758 Galaxy
Credit: SDSS
Viewed in visible light, Markarian 739 resembles a smiling face. It actually is a pair of merging galaxies which lies 425 million light-years away.
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NGC 7479
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Spiral galaxy NGC 7479 displays tightly wound arms of the spiral galaxy spinning in an anticlockwise direction, in this Hubble Space Telescope photograph. However, at radio wavelengths, this galaxy (sometimes nicknamed the Propeller Galaxy) spins the other way, with a jet of radiation bending in the opposite direction of the stars and dust in the arms of the galaxy. Astronomers think that the radio jet in NGC 7479 began its bizarre backwards spin following a merger with another galaxy.
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Star Formation in Galaxy NGC 4214 Looks Like Fireworks
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)
Newly released images obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in July 1997 reveal episodes of star formation that are occurring across the face of the nearby galaxy NGC 4214. Located some 13 million light-years from Earth, NGC 4214 is currently forming clusters of new stars from its interstellar gas and dust.
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Spiral Galaxy Spider Web
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, the galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, the faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk.
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NGC 3314
Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA/Processing: Martin Pugh
NGC 3314 is actually two large spiral galaxies
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Messier 101
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Messier 101: The Pinwheel Galaxy.
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Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 2903
Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum
The central bulge of this spiral galaxy seen almost face-on is composed of old stars giving a yellowish appearance, while the spiral amrs host younger stars denoted by their blue-light emission and star formation regions denoted by their red-light emission.
