Topic: Galaxies
What is the Galactic Center?
If you don’t live by the bright lights of the city and can see the fuzzy arch of the Milky Way Galaxy overhead at night, you’ll have a chance to gaze upon the Galactic Center itself! The Galactic Center is the point around which the rest of our galaxy rotates. You can find it if you look in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Scorpius, and Ophiuchus where the Milky Way looks the brightest.
Polar Ring Galaxies: Strange Galaxies Indeed!
NGC 4065A
It’s not unusual to come across strange things in the universe. The unbelievably enormous size of the universe makes it a sure bet that we will continually find oddities! In my opinion, Polar Ring Galaxies fall into the category of not only odd, but quite rare as well.
The Sombrero Hat Galaxy
The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Light
Imagine dropping out of hyperlight flight five light years away and slightly above the galactic plane of the Sombrero Galaxy. Would the bridge of your interstellar research ship be bathed in the immense stellar glow of this beautiful galaxy? What a sight that would be! As mentioned in earlier posts, this galaxy is is one of my favorites. It is very photogenic and can be easily seen by the amateur astronomer.
Images of Galaxies
The Andromeda Galaxy
Today’s post will focus on images of galaxies. As we’ve discussed before, galaxies are collections of stars, dust, gas, pulsars, quasars, magnatars, and other cosmic bodies all bound together by their common gravity. The image above is the Andromeda Galaxy.
Colliding Galaxies: Can the Milky Way Galaxy Collide with Andromeda?
This is one of those things that’s hard to get your head around. Imagine a collision between two objects whose size is measured in light years! Despite the fact that the universe is vast – approximately 93 billion light years across, galaxies still manage to run into one another.
