Who doesn’t love a spiral galaxy? Majestic, sparkling, lovely to behold… I could go on and on about the marvelous and wondrous science behind them; how spiral arms form, why stars are born there, and how the passage of a nearby galaxy can disturb their graceful symmetry.
But instead, I’ll just point you to the European Southern Observatory collection of disturbed spiral galaxies and simply let you absorb their beauty.
Sigh.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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July 27th, 2006 at 4:33 am
Gosh and golly gee… Do you think I should ask NGC 908 to the prom? Aw… Well, I bet she’s already got a date anyway…
July 27th, 2006 at 5:29 am
Beautiful,
I was just talking to a friend today about how lucky we are that we’re not in a high energy part of the universe !
“The first galaxy pictured is NGC 908, located 65 million light-years towards the constellation of Cetus (the Whale). ”
The link mentions this, I know you look ‘towards’ Cetus to see the galaxy, but isn’t it really beyond the constellation ?
July 27th, 2006 at 5:45 am
All my screensavers are pictures of galaxies. I’ve just found several more to add. Thank you.
July 27th, 2006 at 6:31 am
“Who doesn’t love a spiral galaxy?”
They’re nice, but I’m more of an irregular/elliptical fetishist myself.
July 27th, 2006 at 6:47 am
I find NGC 908 quite tantalizing. There’s a certain beauty in chaos.
It would be interesting to backtrack other galaxies paths to find out which one caused the irregularity in the arm.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:19 am
On Pharyngula, PZ Myers shows a different cephalapod every week. I prefer spiral galaxies.
HAL9000: You prefer elliptical galaxies? Are you some kind of deviated prevert?
July 27th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Alan, a constellation is just an area of the sky, so it’s not really at any distance. It’s like holding up an empty picture frameagainst the sky and saying the Moon is “in it”.
July 27th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I love spirals too. After all, we’re in one, aren’t we?
Think you’ll have an entry dedicated to spiral galaxies on the main site so you can go on and on about them?
July 28th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Ok, those shots are great, truly beautiful. I just can’t understand how, or why the ID mob cannot, or do not, want to appreciate them for their beauty, and (lack of) design. (Is there such a thing as ‘Chaotic design’?)
Back on topic, how do the experts believe that there is another galaxy involved in the NGC908 galaxy? I cannot see any clear evidence that there is interference. Where is the core of the second one? Can it be determined by the relative ages of them, and what if they are about the same age? Visually I feel it would not be possible to use two separated views (a la stereoscopic), as we would need a large baseline to give a reasonable shot, and it would need to be way across our galaxy to achieve that. Or does it?
But, talk about variety, three entirely different galaxies.
Ivan.