Posted on 09/13/2016 7:42:34 AM PDT by ThomasMore
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation: Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here, was captured in spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 1672, which spans about 75,000 light years across. NGC 1672, which appears toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), is being studied to find out how a spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
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Imagine being near the center of a galaxy where the stars are so numerous and bright. I bet there could be places where there is no night. Scientists say radiation would be a problem though.
Beautiful view.
Basically swirling mud that goes nuclear in places.
Humans are advanced byproducts in a minor eddy in a massive stream.
It wouldn’t look like this anyway. Color and brightness are enhanced in astronomical images. The nearest big galaxy (Andromeda) is actually about 6 times wider than the full moon in the sky, but too dim for the human eye to see very well, if at all. Time exposure and color filters are used to bring out the detail. It’s all real, our eyes just can’t pick up most of it.
That is, until we all robotic eye implants like the Six Million Dollar Man.
Have you read “Nightfall” by Asimov.
It address star density very nicely.
Very doubtful. The technology just isn’t there right now and doesn’t appear to be for the very near future.
I’m with you on that!
If they can attain the technology needed to travel to another galaxy (galactic drive) then I’m sure they’ll have replacement eyes that can see all this and then some.
No, I should pick it up. I read their Foundation, Empire and Robot novels but put him down after those.
BEAUTIFUL!!!!
I see the number 9.
5.56mm
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