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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies
Explanation: Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster , one of the closest clusters of galaxies . The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy . Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen here just left of picture center. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 1.5 million light-years.
| Date | December 30, 2005 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford ( Rancho Del Sol Observatory ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |