Hubble Looks at Stunning Spiral Galaxy
This Hubble image shows a spiral galaxy called NGC 4100. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Ho.
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 4100.
NGC 4100 is located some 67 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major.
Also known as LEDA 38370, UGC 7095 and SDSS J120608.45+493457.7, this spiral galaxy has a diameter of about 80,000 light-years.
NGC 4100 was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on March 9, 1788.
The galaxy belongs to a large gathering of galaxies called the M-109 Group (otherwise known as the NGC 3992 group).
It is also a member of the Ursa Major Cluster , a spiral-rich galaxy cluster in the Virgo Supercluster.
“This sparkling spiral galaxy looks almost stretched across the sky in this new image from Hubble,” the astronomers said.
“It boasts a neat spiral structure and swirling arms speckled with the bright blue hue of newly formed stars.”
“Like so many of the stunning images of galaxies we enjoy today, this image was captured by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS),” they added.
“This remarkable instrument was installed in 2002, and, with some servicing over the years by intrepid astronauts, is still going strong.”
Read the entire article here: Science News
Category: NASA
After getting sucked into the Wikipedia hole, there’s some good pictures of galaxy clusters here too; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_cluster
Really makes you feel tiny when you look at a picture and there are hundreds of galaxies, within each are millions of stars, around which billions of planets orbit. The universe is really incomprehensibly vast.
Universe Size Comparison 3D
And the Gov’t says that we are the only inhabited planet which was said when in 1950 or 1951 Jets were scrambled to chase the UFO’s that flew over the white house.
?!?DaHell is Rajesh Koothrappali when we need him? Gonna need Sheldon Cooper to do the math for us. Just as TAH is the one tee tiny voice of reason amongst the in her webs, so is this blue orb we are riding on a tiny speck amongst the Cosmos. Like David (?) commented on the other thread…All we need is a way to get there. How fast is Warp Factor 9?
Depending on which mythical scale you use, somewhere between 729 and 1516 times the speed of light. Sounds great and really fast, until you realize that our little pissant galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and separated from our nearest neighbor by 2,500,000 light years. And there are an estimated 2 TRILLION galaxies… like the man said, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
OK before I specifically get called out I’m gonna throw down on you motherfuckers.
Try to wrap your tiny little minds around this.
More galaxies more stars than your tiny little minds can possibly comprehend.
Is there life out there besides us I am 100% convinced.
At a minimum it’s possible they are 100 billion galaxies, at a maximum it’s infinite in numbers that we cannot complement and every Galaxy has billions of stars.
perhaps…but perhaps not. The Fermi Paradox exists for a reason.
Let us not forget the Great Filter hypothesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
My personal theory is that with the trillions upon trillions of star, planets, and possible life forms out there, it is almost certain there is alien life and probably intelligent life out there. The big questions are a) whether it is any form we are smart enough to detect and recognize b) in such a vast universe, would such life forms ever run into each other more than rarely and c) would they even consider us as intelligent life? On the scale needed to ‘play’ on a galactic or universal scale, we could be comparatively speaking about as advanced as we consider pond slime.
My thoughts exactly. We still move around by burning dead dinosaurs.
ChipNASA, you left out the part about the “red blob limit”, which is the furthest (13 billion light years) that Hubble can “see” a coherent image. Everything beyond that limit is just a red blob for now.
Is there other life out there? Yeah, but they’ll probably run away if they see us coming.
Cool.
*grin*
WOW, I’m spaced out after reading all of this and I see that there is plenty of space out there to have all these planets and solar systems out there in outer space. At least there is plenty of space to write this comment.
It makes me laugh when physicists tell us how all of this came from nothing and that we are now in the end times of star formation here in the Milky Way Galaxy.
We aren’t smart enough to comprehend the vastness of this beautiful, wonderous and dangerous place we call The Universe let alone how it got here.
The Hubble Telescope changed our world and is without a doubt one of the most important science instruments in history.
It changed everything about our comprehension of ourselves and our place in this life.
I watched Story Musgrave fix the Hubble live on C-Span at 3 AM and consider his and the supporting staff contribution to humanity one of the great feats of science in my lifetime.
We will figure out space travel, Warp Drive, and if there really is life elsewhere, that’s why I just shake my head at all these clowns that try to push the globullshit warming theory down our throats.
We, as a species are just getting started. We have only been here for a cosmic eyeblink in the history of the Universe and to think that our puny selves can actually alter the climate of our planet is beyond stupid.
It’s a beautiful place, we just can’t trash it with our stupidity and we will never accomplish anything if we sit around and contemplate our collective navels.
We are an adventuresome species, it’s in our genetics and denying that will only lead to more heartache, death and destruction.
Of that, I am certain…
What if those aren’t stars?…. What if those are holes poked in a lid so we can breathe?