Posted on 01/26/2009 4:42:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A sharp-eyed instrument on the Very Large Telescope has given astronomers a peek at the heart of a nearby galaxy, revealing a host of young, massive and dusty stellar nurseries and a possible twin of our own Milky Way's supermassive black hole.
The galaxy, dubbed NGC 253, is one of the brightest and dustiest spiral galaxies in the sky. It is also known as the Sculptor Galaxy, because it is located in the Sculptor constellation.
The Sculptor Galaxy is a starbust galaxy, so-called because of very intense star formation there.
Astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain used NACO, an adaptive optics instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (located in Atacama desert in northern Chile), to study NGC 253 in finer detail in the near-infrared.
Adaptive optics corrects for the blurring effect that Earth's atmosphere can have on images taken by ground-based telescopes. Sensors and deformable mirrors correct distortions of incoming light, producing images as clear as if the telescope were in space.
With its adaptive optics system, NACO revealed features of NGC 253 that were only 11 light-years across.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The ring of stars circling Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central black hole, shows a combination of infrared and X-ray observations indicating that a surplus of massive stars has formed from a large disk of gas around the black hole in this artist's concept released October 13, 2005. (NASA/CXC/M. Weiss/Reuters)
Where’s the “That’s Racist!” kid when you need it?
You are the wind beneath my wings. ;-)
uh oh...
I’m not too sure there is a real one.
;’)
Well that just goes to prove no one really knows what exists on the other side of an event horizon of a known Black Hole ;-)
Wow, I was set up like a bowlin’ pin on that one! :’D
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