Astronomy Picture of the Day - NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy

NASA ^ | 30 Jun, 2025 | Image Credit: Rabeea Alkuwari & Anas Almajed

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: It's raining stars. What appears to be a giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy. The main galaxy, spiral galaxy NGC 4651, is about the size of our Milky Way, while its stellar parasol appears to extend some 100 thousand light-years above this galaxy's bright disk. A small galaxy was likely torn apart by repeated encounters as it swept back and forth on eccentric orbits through NGC 4651. The remaining stars will surely fall back and become part of a combined larger galaxy over the next few million years. The featured deep image was captured in long exposures from Saudi Arabia. The Umbrella Galaxy lies about 50 million light-years distant toward the well-groomed northern constellation of Berenice's Hair (Coma Berenices).

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[No name given]

Wow.

[telescope115]

So, it’s the collapsible Umbrella Galaxy….

[null and void]

Bus Stop

[Verginius Rufus]

If it’s 50 million light-years away and the stars in the umbrella are expected to fall into the main galaxy over a few million years, they have already done so but we just can’t see it yet. The collapsible umbrella has already collapsed.

[minnesota_bound]

This must have made the aliens dizzy.

[TigersEye]

Too much violence to post on Youtube.

[MrHead]

lens flare by J.J. Abrams

[Red6]

What appears as a halo around the galaxy, is that matter, or from the telescope?

[MtnClimber]

It is a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy, just like the bright “umbrella” area above the bright galaxy. It will all eventually get pulled into the spiral bands, but we won’t be around to see it.