Latest NGC Stories
Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The galaxy's central bulge is just out of the image on the bottom left. The galaxy, spanning some 100,000 light-years, is seen exactly edge-on, and reveals its thick plane of dust and interstellar gas. While...
[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made detailed observations of the dwarf galaxy NGC 2366. While it lacks the elegant spiral arms of many larger galaxies, NGC 2366 is home to a bright, star-forming nebula and is close enough for astronomers to discern its individual stars. The starry mist streaking across this image obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the central part of the dwarf galaxy known as NGC 2366. The most obvious feature in this...
At the National Gallery of Canada Until September 9, 2012 OTTAWA, May 9, 2012 /CNW/ - Nature has been an enduring subject for artists for millennia and across all cultures. From the bulls painted in the Lascaux caves and Palace of Knossos, to the garden frescoes at Pompeii, Dutch still lifes, 19th-century botanical studies and 21st-century land art projects, nature has been either a simple fact of life or a source of curiosity, consolation and spiritual regeneration. Artists...
WASHINGTON, May 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Herschel Space Observatory has shown galaxies with the most powerful, active black holes at their cores produce fewer stars than galaxies with less active black holes. The results are the first to demonstrate black holes suppressed galactic star formation when the universe was less than half its current age. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Herschel is a European Space Agency-led mission with...
NASA unveiled a photo taken by its Hubble Space Telescope just in time for holiday festivities that resembles a snow angel. The "angel" is actually a bipolar star-forming region called Sharpless 2-106, and its wings shape is derived from the nebula. Despite the beauty of this celestial image, there is nothing peaceful about this star forming region. The young star that lies in it is ferocious, spitting out super-hot gas at 18,032 degrees Fahrenheit. "A ring of dust and gas orbiting...
A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that can be seen from the southern hemisphere. Aging bright stars in the cluster glow in intense shades of red and blue. The majority of middle-aged stars, several billions of years old, are whitish in color. A myriad of far distant background galaxies of varying shapes...
Supermassive black holes millions to billions times the mass of our Sun lie at the heart of most, maybe all large galaxies. Some of these power brilliantly luminous, rapidly growing objects called active galactic nuclei that gather and condense enormous quantities of dust, gas and stars. Because astronomers had seen these objects primarily in the oldest, most massive galaxies that glow with the red light of aging stars, many thought active galactic nuclei might help to bring an end to the...
ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has captured a striking image of the open cluster NGC 2100. This brilliant star cluster is around 15 million years old, and located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The cluster is surrounded by glowing gas from the nearby Tarantula Nebula. Observers often overlook NGC 2100 because of its close proximity to the impressive Tarantula Nebula and the super star cluster RMC 136 The glowing gas of the Tarantula...
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago. "If this galaxy...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are...
Latest NGC 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 M81 Group, containing the well known galaxies Messier 81 and Messier 82, is a group of galaxies within the constellation Ursa Major. Along with Messier 81 and 82 are several other galaxies with apparent brightness. The center, located at an approximate distance of 3.6 Mpc, is one of the nearest groups to the Local Group. The total estimated mass of the group is (1.03 ± 0.17) × 1012M☉. The Virgo Supercluster contains the M81 Group, the Local Group, and some other nearby...
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).
The Coma Cluster (Abell 1656), along with the Leo Cluster, is one of two major clusters compromising the Coma Supercluster. It contains over 1000 identified galaxies. Most of the galaxies in the center of the Coma Cluster are elliptical galaxies including both dwarf and giant. However the center is dominated by NGC 4874 and NGC 4889, two giant elliptical galaxies. The brightest galaxies are visible, a few degrees north of the galactic pole, with an amateur telescope larger than 20 cm. The...
Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Pegasus is a visual grouping of five galaxies which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The group was discovered by Édouard Stephan in 1877 at Marseilles Observatory and is the most studied of all the compact galaxy groups. NGC 7320, which has extensive H II regions, is the brightest member of the visual grouping and is where active star formation is occurring. Hickson Compact Group 92, which contains four of the five...
