Latest NGC objects Stories

[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] | [ Video 3 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new Hubble Space Telescope image has been unveiled of NGC 922, revealing the cosmic structure to be an unusual spiral galaxy. The ring structure and distorted spiral shape of NGC 922 was imaged with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to reveal even more chaos in the form of ultra luminous X-ray sources. The galaxy's unusual form is due to a cosmic bulls eye millions of years ago. A smaller...

[ Watch the Video: The Green Bean Galaxy J2240 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers using the European Space Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) have identified a new galaxy class. The "green bean galaxies" have an unusual appearance, glowing in intense light emitted from the surroundings of monster black holes. The galaxies are amongst the rarest objects in the universe, and in the case of green bean galaxies, the entire galaxy glows, not just...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A spectacular new image of the Bubble Nebula, named NGC 7635, has been captured by the new camera known as the One Degree Imager (ODI) that is being commissioned at the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory outside Tucson, Arizona. Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, the Bubble Nebula is approximately 10 light-years across. It is a shell of gas and dust carved out by stellar wind created by the massive...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers recently found evidence for a dying star coming back to life, giving insight into what may be the fate of our own Solar System in a few billion years. The picture released by the European Space Agency (ESA) is of the planetary nebula Abell 30, located 5,500 light-years away from Earth. A planetary nebula is the often-concentric shells of stellar material cast into space by dying stars. Astronomers in the 18th century...

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...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, along with other observatories, has identified one of the lowest mass supermassive black holes ever observed in the middle of a galaxy that one would not expect to harbor this type of beast. This suggests that this black hole, while related to its supermassive cousins, may have a different origin. Located in the middle of the spiral galaxy NGC 4178, the black hole is shown in the image from the Sloan...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online While most elliptical galaxies are considered vintage, retired star making neighborhoods, astronomers have found one that has a personality more like that of a pinwheel-shaped spiral galaxy. Centaurus A isn't considered to be a typical elliptical galaxy to begin with. It is known for its dark dust lane across its middle, which is a sign that it swallowed up a spiral galaxy about 300 million years ago. "No other elliptical galaxy...

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...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has created a sweeping new survey of dying stars – or planetary nebula – in the neighborhood of the Sun. The resulting X-ray images shed light on the violent "end game" of a Sun-like star's life. Led by Joel Kastner from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the team won seven days of observation time with Chandra in 2011-2012 to survey and image...

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...