Alex Cunningham
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The Fibonacci Sequence As Seen in Flowers gallery by Environmental Graffiti is a math and history lesson wrapped in a pretty...
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NGC 3372: The Great Carina Nebula
One of our galaxy’s largest star-forming regions.
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INK
[noun]
1. a fluid or viscous substance used for writing or printing.
2 .a dark, protective fluid ejected by the...
Spiral Galaxy Study Yields Super Sharp Images
The galaxies represent three different classes of spiral shapes. Three of them — dubbed NGC 5247, NGC 4030 and NGC 2997 — are simply designated as spiral galaxies. One galaxy, NGC 1300, is a “barred spiral,” with two arms extending from a prominent central bar. Another, NGC 1232, is an “intermediate spiral,” lying somewhere between barred and unbarred galaxies. And NGC 4321 (also known as Messier 100) is a “grand spiral,” featuring several well-defined, tentacle-like spiral arms.
NGC 5247
- Grand design barred spiral galaxy
- 60–70 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Virgo
Messier 100 (NGC 4321)
- Grand design spiral galaxy
- 55 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Coma Berenices
NGC 1300
- Barred spiral galaxy
- 65 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Eridanus
NGC 4030
- Spiral galaxy
- 75 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Virgo
NGC 2997
- Spiral galaxy
- 30 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Antlia
NGC 1232
- Intermediate spiral galaxy
- 65 million light-years from Earth
- Constellation: Eridanus
Images: ESO/P. Grosbøl
(via uraniaproject)
Starbursts May Actually Destroy Globular Clusters
A movie of two colliding galaxies based on new computer simulations from astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. The simulations covers 3.3 billion years. The galaxies eventually merge, destroying many of the stellar clusters (visible here as dots) in the process. Credit: D. Kruijssen, MPA
(via skeptv)
Beauties of The Universe: An Assortment of Favorite Galaxies
Click individual images for galaxy’s specific catalog name in case you find any you claim to be your favorite as well. Enjoy!
A massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas, dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The name is from the Greek word galaxias [γαλαξίας], literally meaning “milky”, a reference to the Milky Way galaxy. Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars, up to giants with a hundred trillion (1014) stars, all orbiting the galaxy’s center of mass. -Wiki
(via ikenbot)
To celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s deployment into space, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., pointed Hubble’s eye at a pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.
The Whirlpool Galaxy in Infrared Dust
How do spiral galaxies form stars? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the nearby photogenic spiral M51 in infrared light to highlight the dust that traces the dense gas that best forms stars. To further isolate the dust, much of the optical light from stars has also been digitally removed. The resulting unique image shows swirling and intricate patterns on the longest scales, while numerous bright clumps of previously hidden open star clusters appear on the smaller scales. To see the detailed optical light image for comparison, run your cursor over the above image. Anyone with a good pair of binoculars can see the Whirlpool toward the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). M51 lies about 30 million light years away, while the above imaged area spans about 15,000 light years from top to bottom. Astronomers speculate that M51’s spiral structure is primarily due to its gravitational interaction with a neighboring smaller galaxy.
Credit: Infrared: NASA, ESA, M. Regan & B. Whitmore (STScI), & R. Chandar (U. Toledo);
Creating a Hubble Galaxy in Two Minutes
Hubble images are made, not born. Images must be woven together from the incoming data from the cameras, cleaned up and given colors that bring out features that eyes would otherwise miss. In this video from HubbleSite.org, online home of the Hubble Space Telescope, a Hubble-imaged galaxy comes together on the screen at super-fast speed.
(via itsfullofstars)
