Space images thread

[Drone]

M82, which is located ~12 million ly away in the constellation Ursa Major, is a classic example of a starburst galaxy - one that is producing new stars tens- to hundreds-of-times faster than Milky Way.

The yellow areas correspond to regions of intense star formation. The red areas trace giant outflows of ionized gas fleeing the disk of the galaxy.

 

[Drone]

Image of NGC 6872 (left) and companion galaxy IC 4970 (right) locked in a tango as the two galaxies gravitationally interact. The galaxies lie ~ 200 million ly away in the direction of the constellation Pavo.

About half of the Whirlpool Galaxy's (M51) hydrogen molecules (blue) fill the spiral in a foglike layer, not in giant, individual clouds where stars form. The pressure the molecular hydrogen fog exerts on the giant clouds plays a larger role in making new stars than previously thought. The galaxy sits ~23 million ly from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.

The Bird (ESO 593-IG 008 or IRAS 19115-2124) is a triple merger of galaxies (at a distance of 650 million ly), composed of one barred spiral, one more irregular and a third (the head) irregular galaxy that seems to be forming stars at a frantic rate (200 solar masses per year).

Because of the resemblance of the system to a bird, the object was dubbed as such, with the 'head' being the third component, and the 'heart' and 'body' making the two major galaxy nuclei in-between of tidal tails, the 'wings'. The latter extend >100000 ly (the size of Milky Way).
The 'head' and major parts of the 'Bird' are moving apart at >400 km/s (1.4 million km/h!). Observing such high velocities is very rare in merging galaxies. Also, the 'head' appears to be the major source of infrared luminosity in the system, though it is the smallest of the three galaxies.
The 'Bird' belongs to the prestigious family of luminous infrared galaxies, with an infrared luminosity nearly one thousand billion times that of the Sun. This family of galaxies has long been thought to signpost important events in galaxy evolution, such as mergers of galaxies, which in turn trigger bursts of star formation, and may eventually lead to the formation of a single elliptical galaxy.

What appears as a bird's head, leaning over to snatch up a tasty meal, is a striking example of a galaxy collision in NGC 6745. A large spiral galaxy, with its nucleus still intact, peers at the smaller passing galaxy (nearly out of the field of view at lower right). These galaxies did not merely interact gravitationally as they passed one another, they actually collided.

When galaxies collide, the stars that normally comprise the major portion of the luminous mass of each of the two galaxies will almost never collide with each other, but will pass rather freely between each other with little damage. This occurs because the physical size of individual stars is tiny compared to their typical separations, making the chance of physical encounter relatively small.

However, the situation is quite different for the interstellar media in the above two galaxies. Wherever the interstellar clouds of the two galaxies collide, they do not freely move past each other without interruption but, rather, suffer a damaging collision. High relative velocities cause ram pressures at the surface of contact between the interacting interstellar clouds. This pressure, in turn, produces material densities sufficiently extreme as to trigger star formation through gravitational collapse. The hot blue stars in this image are evidence of this star formation.

 

[Drone]

The bipolar planetary nebula Sh2-71 lies in the constellation of Aquila at a distance of 1 kpc

Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus or NGC 2070) is located in the southern constellation Dorado 160000 ly from Earth.

 

[Drone]

New cool high resolution images:

This ethereal object, known as [SBW2007] 1, is a nebula with a giant star at its centre. The star was originally 20 times more massive than our Sun, and is now encased in a swirling ring of purple gas, the remains of the distant era when it cast off its outer layers via violent pulsations and winds.

The nearby spiral galaxy M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, lies 15 million ly away in the constellation Hydra.
This Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and "ghosts" of dead stars called supernova remnants. The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death spread across 50000 ly.

 

[Drone]

Coma Cluster is ~ 350 million ly away from us and contains over 1000 identified galaxies, the majority of which are elliptical.
The bright, saucer-shaped objects surrounded by misty halos in this image are galaxies, each of them host to many millions of stars. The background of the image is full of distant galaxies, many of them with spiral shapes, that are located much further away and do not belong to the cluster.

 

[Drone]

Formed about 100 million years ago, the Pleiades star cluster (M45 or Seven Sisters) comprises 800 stars. It is located 410 ly from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

At the left, spiral galaxy NGC 2276, in the constellation of Cepheus, shows an asymmetrical appearance. To its right, we see elliptical galaxy NGC 2300, together with NGC 2276 forming galaxy pair Arp 114.

 

[Drone]

The Lagoon Nebula is a giant cloud of interstellar gas and dust located in the constellation Sagittarius, ~ 5700 ly away.

Spiral Galaxy M65

 

[Drone]

Centaurus A is a galaxy located ~12 million ly from Earth. In this image, the lowest-energy X-rays are red, while the medium-energy X-rays are green, and the highest-energy ones are blue.

This new image shows the spectacular jet of outflowing material - seen pointing from the middle to the upper left - that is generated by the giant black hole at the galaxy's center. This high-energy snapshot also highlights a dust lane that wraps around the waist of the galaxy. Astronomers think this feature is a remnant of a collision that Centaurus A experienced with a smaller galaxy millions of years ago.

 

[BiggieShady]

Centaurus A is a galaxy located ~12 million ly from Earth.

12 million light years away ... it's amusing when you think about it, that jet was generated by the giant black hole at that galaxy's center while our Earth was in Miocene, 12 million years ago, when these dudes were roaming north america:

Spoiler

 

[Drone]

Brand new image of M7 star cluster.

M7 (NGC 6475), is a brilliant cluster of about 100 stars located ~ 800 ly from Earth. At about 200 million years old, M7 is a typical middle-aged open cluster, spanning a region of space ~ 25 ly across. As they age, the brightest stars in the picture - a population of up to a tenth of the total stars in the cluster - will violently explode as supernovae. Looking further into the future, the remaining faint stars, which are much more numerous, will slowly drift apart until they become no longer recognisable as a cluster.

 

[Drone]

NGC 660 is a polar ring galaxy at a distance of ~ 43 million ly in the constellation of Pisces. Polar ring galaxies are named as such because a substantial proportion of the stellar population, gas and dust orbit the galaxy is placed in rings around the nucleus. These rings are thought to be created by interaction with a neighbouring galaxy.

 

[Drone]

Orange supergiant star, Xi Cygni, beams through the red haze of the North American Nebula's "west coast".

The North America Nebula is an emission nebula 100 ly in diameter located in the constellation Cygnus ~ 1800 ly away.

 

[Samo_Krose]

these are so beautiful image, i love space,

how do u calculate the distance in light year?

 

[BiggieShady]

these are so beautiful image, i love space,

how do u calculate the distance in light year?

the speed of light = 299,792,458 m / s
1 year is 31,557,600 seconds
distance that light travels in a year is 299,792,458 * 31,557,600 meters or 9,460,730,472,580,800 meters

 

[Ahhzz]

I'm used to the "186,000 miles per sec" myself

 

[Samo_Krose]

I'm used to the "186,000 miles per sec" myself

What you mean? How you calculated?

 

[Ahhzz]

What you mean? How you calculated?

No, how I remembered it from class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

 

[Drone]

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a galaxy cluster, known as MACS J0454.1-0300. Each of the bright spots seen here is a galaxy, and each is home to many millions, or even billions, of stars.

MACS J0454.1-0300 is so massive it is the equivalent of about 180 trillion suns. For comparison, the sun is about 333000 times the mass of the Earth.

 

[Drone]

This image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1132. The blue/purple in the image is the X-ray glow from hot, diffuse gas. The giant foreground galaxy, numerous dwarf galaxies in its neighborhood, and many much more distant galaxies in the background are seen in visible light.

Chandra's Archives Come to Life

 

[Drone]

Lenticular galaxy NGC 4526. Its dark lanes of dust and bright diffuse glow make the galaxy appear to hang like a halo in the emptiness of space.
This galaxy is known to have a colossal supermassive black hole at its center that has the mass of 450 million Suns.

Galaxy NGC 1291. Though the galaxy is quite old, ~ 12 billion years, it is marked by an unusual ring where newborn stars are igniting.
NGC 1291 is located ~ 33 million ly away in the constellation Eridanus. It is what's known as a barred galaxy, because its central region is dominated by a long bar of stars (the bar is within the blue circle and looks like the letter "S"). The stars that appear blue in the central, bulge region of the galaxy are older; most of the gas there was previously used up by earlier generations of stars. When galaxies are young and gas-rich, stellar bars drive gas toward the center, feeding star formation.

Over time, as the fuel runs out, the central regions become quiescent and star-formation activity shifts to the outskirts of a galaxy. There, spiral density waves and resonances induced by the central bar help convert gas to stars. The outer ring, seen here in red, is one such resonance area, where gas has been trapped and ignited into star-forming frenzy.

 

[Drone]

NGC 1068 is a nearby [located ~ 50 million ly from Earth] spiral galaxy containing a black hole at its center that is twice as massive as the Milky Way's. A million-mile-per-hour wind is being driven from NGC 1068's black hole. This wind is likely generated as surrounding gas is accelerated and heated as it swirls toward the black hole.

 

[Toothless]

Subbing! I've always loved learning about the vast space of space.

 

[Drone]

Perseus & Virgo galaxy clusters (X-ray images)

NGC 90 is the spiral galaxy with extended arms at the top center of the image. Lies ~ 250 million ly away in the constellation of Andromeda.

 

[Drone]

A hungry starburst galaxy M61

Spectacular edge-on view of lenticular galaxy NGC 4762. It lies ~ 58 million ly away in the constellation of Virgo

An immense collection of nearly 500 galaxies nicknamed "Pandora's Cluster" (Abell 2744). It weighs >4 trillion solar masses.

 

[Drone]

Nebula called Gum 15

Stellar nursery in NGC 3603