A galactic cloud
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows what scientists dub a lenticular galaxy, with features that put it somewhere between a spiral galaxy and an elliptical (which has no structure a appears instead a cloud of stars), sitting about 73 million light years away.
NGC 3156 has been studied in many ways … from its cohort of globular clusters, to its relatively recent star formation, to the stars that are being destroyed by the supermassive black hole at its centre.
Why this galaxy has no spiral arms is somehow related to its age and its central black hole, but the detailed theories that astronomers have to explain this are far from confirmed.
The image is interesting also because of its lack of foreground stars or background galaxies. Its location in the sky explains this, as Hubble was looking at right angle to the Milky Way’s galactic plane, essentially looking directly into the vast emptiness between the galaxies.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows what scientists dub a lenticular galaxy, with features that put it somewhere between a spiral galaxy and an elliptical (which has no structure a appears instead a cloud of stars), sitting about 73 million light years away.
NGC 3156 has been studied in many ways … from its cohort of globular clusters, to its relatively recent star formation, to the stars that are being destroyed by the supermassive black hole at its centre.
Why this galaxy has no spiral arms is somehow related to its age and its central black hole, but the detailed theories that astronomers have to explain this are far from confirmed.
The image is interesting also because of its lack of foreground stars or background galaxies. Its location in the sky explains this, as Hubble was looking at right angle to the Milky Way’s galactic plane, essentially looking directly into the vast emptiness between the galaxies.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
For it to reach the disk stage it must have some rotation.
And I think I can see arms starting to form inside the disk.
Its a beautiful galaxy though.
There is a ring of dust around the core that’s faint but indicates there may be some circular rotation. I agree with you pzatchok.
This may be a stretch, but the gas cloud that’s the dominant feature may have been formed by the small remnant of the galaxy on the upper left of the picture (it appears close to the galaxy because it’s also in focus)
If it passed through? creating the gas cloud at an angle as it appears now, on the other side of the galaxy, millions of years ago before the galaxy rotated away from the intruder?
This might be evidence that irregular galaxies also have some rotation.