There are times (not infrequent) when I like to ponder deep time and deep space. Doing so is enhanced by an image of a galaxy. This Astronomy Photo of the Day features a distant (200,000 light years away) galaxy that is oriented perpendicular to our plane of view.
"From the core outward, the galaxy's colors change from the yellowish light of old stars in the center to young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions along the grand, sweeping spiral arms. NGC 1232's apparent, small, barred-spiral companion galaxy is cataloged as NGC 1232A. Distance estimates place it much farther though, around 300 million light-years away..."
Earth's position in our Milky Way would be near the tip of one of the spiral arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment