Latest Messier objects Stories
WASHINGTON, April 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. (Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have found that a region of space known as the Wing has fewer “metals” (elements with more than two protons in the nucleus) compared to most other areas within our own Milky Way galaxy. There are also relatively lower amounts of gas, dust and stars in the Wing compared to the Milky Way. This knowledge makes the Wing an excellent candidate for the study of the life cycle of stars and the gas lying between them. Not...
Watch the videos "Panning Across Messier 77" and "Zooming in on Messier 77" Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A stunning new image of the spiral galaxy Messier 77 captured by the Hubble Space Telescope was released today. The image of one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies features patches of red throughout the photo, which highlights the pockets of star formation along its arms. Messier 77, or NGC 1068, sits in the constellation Cetus about 45 million...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have unveiled a new image of recently formed bright blue stars in the cluster NGC 2547. Astronomers using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Space Observatory's (ESO) La Silla Observatory in Chile took images of the stars while they were focusing in on the southern constellation of Vela (The Sail). Despite the universe being roughly 13.8 billion years old, new stars and objects are...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online Through detailed study of the constellation Ursa Major, astronomers have reportedly found two new clouds of hydrogen gas, one which is a faint dwarf galaxy, and the other which could be a proto dwarf galaxy that has not yet had a chance to form any stars. The research team, led by Case Western Reserve University astronomy professor Chris Mihos, have dubbed the gas clouds – which are formally named G1425+5235 and G1355+5439...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A little over 400 years ago, French astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc first discovered the "fog" that is the Orion nebula. Located a mere 1,500 light years from our solar system, the Orion nebula is one of the great wonders of the night sky whose discovery is intimately associated with the early development of telescopes. Scientists have only realized the importance of the nebula in the last 60 years: the Orion nebula, like...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online While looking at one of the most distant quasars in the universe, astronomers were surprised to not see an underlying host galaxy of stars feeding it. NASA said the best explanation is that the galaxy is shrouded in so much dust that the stars are completely hidden everywhere. As stars aged and burned out in the early universe, they filled interstellar space with dust as they lost their atmosphere. The quasar dates back to an...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Many images that we see from the space observatories are beautiful. Swirling colors and bright galaxies make for amazing images. But an image just released from the ground-based Gemini Observatory of the polar-ring galaxy NGC 660 might be the most hauntingly beautiful image ever. Add in the back story of a colorful and dramatic tale of two galaxies locked in a life-and-death struggle, and the picture becomes poetry in motion. All...
Watch the Video: [ Zooming in on the Seagull Nebula ] Watch the Video: [ Panning Across the Head of the Seagull Nebula ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new image taken by the European Space Observatory's La Silla Observatory shows off a stellar nursery nicknamed the Seagull Nebula. This nebula looks like the head of the seagull, and glows brightly due to the energetic radiation from a hot young star that sits at its heart. Nebulae are interstellar...
[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has taken the most detailed image so far of a spectacular part of the stellar nursery called NGC 6357. The view shows many hot young stars, glowing clouds of gas and weird dust formations sculpted by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds. Deep in the Milky Way in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion) lies NGC 6357 [1], a region of space where new stars are being born in of chaotic clouds of gas and dust [2]. The outer...
Latest Messier objects Reference Libraries
The NGC 5866, located in the Draco constellation, is named after the galaxy with the highest magnitude however some catalogs list NGC 5907 as the brightest member. The M51 Group and the M101 Group are NGC 5866 closest neighbor. The distances between these groups are similar which suggest the three groups are part of a single large, loose, elongated group. However, most identification methods consider them separate.
The M101 Group, one of many in the Virgo Supercluster, is located in Ursa Major and named after the brightest galaxy in the group, the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). The group is composed mostly of members that are companions of the Pinwheel Galaxy. The M51 Group and the NGC 5866 Group are M101's closest neighbor. The distances between these groups are similar which suggest the three groups are part of a single large, loose, elongated group. However, most identification methods consider them...
The M51 Group, located in Canes Venatici, is named after the brightest galaxy in the group, the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51A). The few other notable members include the companion galaxy to the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51B) and the Sunflower Galaxy (M63).
Planetary Nebula -- A planetary nebula is an astronomical object that usually appears nebulous and disk-like in low-resolution observations. Because of this appearance, similar to the appearance of planets in early observations, the "planetary" adjective was attached and has since been retained for historical consistency. According to current observations and models, planetary nebulae in fact have little to do with planets. Instead, as a small star (less than a few times the mass...
Galaxy -- Stars are almost always found in collections called galaxies, together with gas, dust, and large amounts of dark matter detected by its gravitational effects. These are all held together by gravitational attraction and orbit a common centre. There is some evidence that black holes may exist at the centre of some or most galaxies. Galaxies come in three main types: ellipticals, spirals, and irregulars. A slightly more extensive description of galaxy types is given by the Hubble...
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