#galaxy

#galaxy

Three Galaxies Swirling Into Each Other Captured by the Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope has captured a fascinating image distant galaxies in the process of merging. The three galaxies IC 2431, located 681 million light-years away from Earth, are swirling into each other with a thick cloud of dust obscuring the center of the image. Light from a background galaxy was seen piercing through the outer parts.The image was found by Galaxy Zoo citizen science project, in which more than 100,000 volunteers sift through 900,000 unexamined galaxies as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Weird and interesting finds are then given to astronomers to take closer looks.The Galaxy Zoo shows how powerful a crowdsourced project could be: what would have been years of work for professional astronomers was  achieved in just 175 days.Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel, Dark Energy Survey, Department of Energy, Fermilab, Dark Energy Survey Camera, (DECam), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NoirLab/National Science Foundation/AURA, Sloan Digital Sky Survey; Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt#Hubble #galaxy #GalaxyZoo #HubbleSpaceTelescope

Winners of the Astro2021 Astronomy Photo Contest"Deep in the Heart of Mordor" by Andy Campbell, Australia.Winners' gallery of ASTRO2021: The Competition is a sight to behold. The gallery showcases a collection of magnificent astronomy-related images taken by photographers from all over the world.Last year, ASTRO2021: The Competition announced two Grand Prize Winners, one for each of two divisions. Andy Campbell of Australia won the Austronomy Division with "Lambda Centauri Vortex (IC 2944)" and Larryn Rae of New Zealand won the Nightscape Division with "Mountain Basecamp." Campbell also secured 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th positions in the Astronomy Division, and Rae secured 2nd, 5th and 6th in the Nightscape Division.Both Grand Prize Winner images are shown below.

Nearly 1,000 Mysterious Filaments Twist Through the Center of the Milky Way GalaxyA new telescopic image from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory's (SARAO) MeerKAT telescope was processed by astronomers. The resulting photograph was of the complex heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The MeerKat is the most sensitive radio telescope in the world, with 64 antennas spread over a diameter of 5 miles (8 kilometers).Astronomers combined 20 radio recordings that covered an area of the sky and turned them into a 100-megapixel mosaic that depicted the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The resulting image showed new supernova remnants, stellar nurseries, outbursting stars, and Sagittarius A*, the chaotic region around the supermassive black hole that lurks in the Milky Way's core.In addition to sighting different cosmic phenomena, experts have also discovered 1,000 mysterious strands that stretch up to 150 light years long. These mysterious filaments have strong magnetic fields and are found in pairs and clusters. According to astrophysicist Farhad Yusef-Zadeh at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, the mosaic has revealed a bigger picture. “Just examining a few filaments makes it difficult to draw any real conclusion about what they are and where they came from. This is a watershed in furthering our understanding of these structures," he said.Image credit: Ian Heywood/SARAO#astrophysics #galaxy #space #science #MeerKat #telescopes #MilkyWay

Hubble Gives us a Closer Look at at Old Movie StarsOn December 18, the Astronomy Picture of the Day was of Stephan's Quintet, a view of five galaxies, four of which are about 300 million light years away. This image was taken by the Hubble space telescope in 2009. But you've seen these galaxies before, without even realizing it. It was the opening scene of the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, when the angels are talking about sending Clarence Oddbody down to save George Bailey.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 competition have just been announced. The annual astronomy photography competition, now in its 13th year, is hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and drew more than 4,500 entries, including many featuring images of distant galaxies that require the use of powerful telescopes.The overall winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 was Shuchang Dong who took this deceptively simple photo of a solar eclipse titled "The Golden Ring" shown above. Dong took the photo in the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020."This place has year-round sunny weather, but in front of the annular eclipse, I saw dark clouds all over the sky," Dong said, "We were waiting with anxious minds but we were lucky. Within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine penetrated through the clouds and afterwards the Sun was sucked into the thick clouds.""This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event," noted competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, "Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower righthand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!"View more of the fantastic photos of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition below.#astronomy #photography #AstronomyPhotographeroftheYear #ShuchangDong #sun #solareclipse

Supermassive Black Holes Spawned Massive Cosmic "Dancing Ghosts"Astronomers from Western Sydney University and Australia's national science agency CSIRO have discovered a strange electron cloud deep in the universe the that looks like "two dancing ghosts."The strange cloud was discovered during a deep sky survey using CSIRO's Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope."When we first saw the 'dancing ghosts' we had no idea what they were," said lead researcher Ray Norris in a statement. "After weeks of work, we figured out we were seeing two 'host' galaxies, about a billion light years away. In their centers are two supermassive black holes, squirting out jets of electrons that are then bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind."Image: Western Sydney University#galaxy #blackhole #ghost #electroncloud #dancing #astronomy #radiotelescope