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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.
Edge-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 891
Explanation: This beautiful cosmic portrait features NGC 891 . The spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way . At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark obscuring dust . Also apparent in NGC 891's edge-on presentation are filaments of dust that extend hundreds of light-years above and below the center line. The dust has likely been blown out of the disk by supernova explosions or intense star formation activity . Faint neighboring galaxies can also been seen near this galaxy's disk.
| Date | February 25, 2010 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Bob Franke |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |