The Hubble Space Telescope image (above) shows NGC 6503 in impressive detail and with a wealth of colour. The Hubble Space Telescope image (above) shows NGC 6503 in impressive detail and with an abundance of colour. Dark brown dust regions are found in the arms and centre of the galaxy. Light blue regions contain stars that are forming.
NGC 6503’s odd location at the edge of this void has led some stargazers to dub it a “lost-in-space galaxy”. This newly released Hubble image shows the galaxy NGC 6503 sitting on the edge of what astronomers call the Local Void. NGC 6503 spans about 30,000 light years, which is about one-third the size of the Milky Way.
What overlaps with NGC 3314?
By an unusual chance alignment, the frontal spiral galaxy (NGC 3314A), about 55,000 light-years across, lies just ahead of the other, larger lensed galaxy (NGC 3314B), whose estimated distance is nearly 70,000 light-years. NGC 3314A is moving away from us at about 2851 kilometres per second, while the background galaxy is moving away from Earth at about 4641 kilometres per second. This unique alignment gives astronomers the opportunity to measure the properties of the interstellar dust in the foreground galaxy (NGC 3314a). Thanks to the long exposure time, totalling more than an hour for each image, the picture shows not only NGC 3314, but also many other more distant galaxies in the background.
What kind of galaxy is NGC 1705?
The central region of the small galaxy NGC 1705 glows with the light of thousands of young and old stars. NGC 1705 is a peculiar lenticular galaxy and a blue compact dwarf galaxy (BCD) in the southern constellation Pictor, located less than one degree east of Iota Pictoris, and is in a starburst. Despite the difference in classification (NGC 1705 as BCD and NGC 1569 as DIG), they are similar objects, showing signs of both complex structure and the presence of galactic outflows. In galaxies outside the Local Group, crowding and size constraints make it increasingly difficult to resolve the fainter stars, reducing the achievable look-back time.
Which telescope is lost in space?
At any given time, Hubble houses five science instruments, as well as the fine-control sensors used mainly to point the telescope, but occasionally for scientific astrometry measurements. It turned out that the telescope’s mirror had a tiny flaw, and this Hubble problem made the telescope a household name as comedians and pranksters poked fun at its poor visibility. Existing ground-based telescopes and various proposed extremely large telescopes may outperform the HST in terms of sheer light-gathering power and diffraction limit due to larger mirrors, but other factors affect telescopes. Kodak had ground a replacement mirror for Hubble, but it would have been impossible to replace the mirror in orbit, and it would have been too expensive and time-consuming to bring the telescope back to Earth for a refit.
What kind of galaxy is NGC 5383?
At an inclination of 39° with respect to Earth, NGC 5238 has a total mass of 117 million solar masses, with a star formation rate of 0.01 solar masses per year. NGC 5383 – spiral galaxy in the Canes Venatici – is classified as a spiral galaxy (SAb) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs morphological classification. In 1977, it was hypothesised that NGC 5238 is not a single galaxy, but a pair of interacting galaxies. NGC 5238 is thought to emit not only HI gas but also radio continuum emissions.
