Galaxies

[Astronuc]

Planetary camera observations of the double nucleus of M31

Wow, I didn't know this.    I must have been off the planet when this was announced.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961011.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061126.html

I would very much like a spacecraft that would travel round-trip to Andromeda in a short period of time.  But then I'd want to visit lots of places in the Milky Way galaxy - like Rigel, Betelgeuse, the Horsehead Nebula, . . . . .

[Astronuc]

I was prompted to look at two examples of spiral galaxies regarding a comment I heard about Hubble Ultra Deep Field survey.

Pin Wheel Galaxy (M101) - reportedly the best example of a spiral galaxy - that we can observe that is.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060302.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030310.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000610.html - this is interesting in the UV.  What strikes me is the asymmetry - and I wonder what that means in terms of mass distribution and energy generation.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970805.html


M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy from VLT
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051218.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030511.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991206.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970419.html


NGC 3314: When Galaxies Overlap - two large spiral galaxies
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000511.html

[Astronuc]

Mystery spiral arms explained?
10 April 2007

Using a trio of space observatories, astronomers may have cracked a 45-year old mystery surrounding two ghostly spiral arms in the galaxy M106 (NGC 4258).
 
The results, obtained by a team from the University of Maryland (USA), took advantage of the unique capabilities of the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

M106 (also known as NGC 4258) is a spiral galaxy 23.5 million light-years away, in the constellation Canes Venatici. In visible-light images, two prominent arms emanate from the bright nucleus and spiral outward. These arms are dominated by young, bright stars, which light up the gas within the arms. "But in radio and X-ray images, two additional spiral arms dominate the picture, appearing as ghostly apparitions between the main arms," says team member Andrew Wilson of the University of Maryland. These so-called "anomalous arms" consist mostly of gas.

. . . .

[Astronuc]

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/Gallery/galimgs.html

[Astronuc]

An interesting perspective on the Milky Way Galaxy and its neighbors - the Magellanic Clouds.
http://cseligman.com/text/galaxies/milkyway.htm