[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Fun Fact:

Centaurus A, at 11 million light-years' distance, is the closest active galaxy to our own.

APOD has featured Cen A as many times as any other astronomical object.
It's a fascinating galaxy and is close by, astronomically speaking.

[petuniasevan]

[petuniasevan]

I'm going to do something unusual here: repost each Cen A image that APOD has featured.

8-12-02 composite image radio, optical light, x-rays

4-21-02 mosaic of Hubble images in red, green, blue light

2-02-02 composite optical, infrared, and radio lobe outlines traced

8-16-01 Chandra false-color x-ray image - see the jet?

10-28-99 composite optical and x-ray image (Chandra)

3-30-97 optical image Cerro Tololo Observatory

Some of these images were repeated over the years; the Hubble mosaic from 4-21 had been featured 3 times previously!

Enjoy!

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Centaurus A, at 11 million light-years' distance, is the closest active galaxy to our own.

What does "active galaxy" mean? Both the Magelanic Clouds (<1 million LY) and the Andromeda galaxy (2 million LY) are closer than Centaurus A.