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.
According to the Astronomical Institute at St. Petersburg State University in Russia, there have only been 157 Polar Ring Galaxies identified. A Polar Ring Galaxy (PRG) is type of galaxy where an outer ring of gas and stars rotates over the poles of the galaxy.
Imagine dropping out of hyperlight flight five light years and slightly above the galactic plane of the Sombrero Galaxy. Would the bridge of your interstellar voyager 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 very photogenic and is can be easily seen by the amateur astronomer.
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.
A galaxy is just about the largest object in the universe. Our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy may eventually collide. So what happens when galaxies do reach one another?