Posted on 08/11/2018 11:21:44 AM PDT by ETL
Astronomers using ESOs VLT Survey Telescope (VST) have examined a small group of five galaxies in the southern hemisphere. The results will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The NGC 5018 galaxy group lies in the constellation of Virgo, approximately 130 million *light-years from Earth.
*[one light year, the distance light travels in a year, at its fixed speed of 186,000 miles per second, works out to about 5.9 trillion miles -etl]
It consists of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5018, the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5022, the spiral galaxy MCG-03-34-013, and two face-on dwarf, gas-rich spirals.
NGC 5018 (the milky-white galaxy near the center of the new VST image) is the dominant member of the group.
It may at first resemble nothing but a diffuse blob. But, on closer inspection, a tenuous stream of stars and gas a tidal tail can be seen stretching outwards from this galaxy.
Delicate galactic features such as tidal tails and stellar streams are hallmarks of galactic interactions, and provide vital clues to the structure and dynamics of galaxies.
As well as the many elliptical and a few spiral galaxies in the VST image, a colorful variety of bright foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy also pepper the image.
These stellar interlopers, such as the vividly blue HD 114746 near the center of the image, are not the intended subjects of this astronomical portrait, but happen to lie between the Earth and the distant galaxies under study.
Less prominent, but no less fascinating, are the faint tracks left by asteroids in our own Solar System.
Just below NGC 5018, the faint streak left by the asteroid 2001 TJ21 (110423) can be seen stretching across the image.
Further to the right, another asteroid, 2000 WU69 (98603), left its trace in this spectacular image.
“Astronomers” see lights in the sky - make up “facts” that have no basis in reality.
Wow!
A candy bowl full of galaxies!
You should try actually reading and learning about what they do and how they do it.
Thank you.
Respectfully (sincerely),
You will be astounded one day when you finally come to realize the level(s) of deception to which we have been subjected.
Within a dime-seized circle at arms length, looking through it at an empty part of the night sky, are all those galaxies. Not stars, galaxies.
The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space. Carl Sagan
On the other hand, what a blessing if God created all of it just for us.
With the first, and I'm sure at least most of the later, Hubble "Deep Fields", it was actually something like 3,000 galaxies within a speck of sky the width of a grain of sand at arm's length. Incredible to think that that tiny angle, at arm's length, would widen to 100s of millions of light years across as they looked out 13 or so billion light years into the night sky.
Bttt!
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