Posted on 05/26/2012 9:48:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: This sharp cosmic portrait features NGC 891. The spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark obscuring dust. The combined image data also reveal the galaxy's young blue star clusters and telltale pinkish star forming regions. And remarkably apparent in NGC 891's edge-on presentation are filaments of dust that extend hundreds of light-years above and below the center line. The dust has likely been blown out of the disk by supernova explosions or intense star formation activity. Faint neighboring galaxies can also be seen near this galaxy's disk.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: Composite Data Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Legacy Archive, Michael Joner, David Laney (West Mountain Observatory, BYU); Processing Robert Gendler]
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The galaxy alone probably contains many billions of planets.
Thank you so much, SunkenCiv.
I’m always awestruck.
This 30 million light year thing is a bit confusing. It could be gone now and we would not know...right? In fact is there even any way to prove anything farther than let’s say a million light years is still there? This stuff kinda hurts my head.
Thank You for another awesome APOD! :-)
That’s very true. Only the closest stars in our own Galaxy can be seen with.. well “real-time” so to speak, even some of those might just poof suddenly (that would be unlikely though).
There goes the cosmic neighborhood! Another galaxy just like ours? There isn’t enough room in the Universe!
This galaxy has a bulge in the middle? Don’t we all....don’t we all....
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