The Hubble Space Telescope takes a closer look at an unusual spiral galaxy 120 million...

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: NASA and the European Space Agency have shared a new image of a strange spiral galaxy located approximately 120 million light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. NGC 2276 was first discovered by Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke in 1876 and has fascinated astronomers ever since due to its contorted appearance

As Hubble Site describes it…

The myriad spiral galaxies in our universe almost all look like fried eggs. A central bulge of aging stars is like the egg yolk, surrounded by a disk of stars that are the egg white. The galaxy in this Hubble photo looks like it is sliding off the frying pan. The central bulge is off in one corner relative to the surrounding disk of bright young blue stars.

The galaxy’s appearance is believed to be caused by two astrophysical interactions.

Along the upper left edge of the image, you’ll notice a bright blue arm of newborn and short-lived stars. It is believed that this region of intense star formation could have been caused by a collision with a dwarf galaxy or the interaction of superheated gas that lies between galaxies in galaxy clusters.

On the opposite side, the gravitational pull from nearby galaxy NGC 2300 is distorting the outermost spiral arm of NGC 2276 and causing the stars to be more spaced out.

This "zoom into" video of NGC 2276 really helps to put into perspective just how far away the galaxy is, and how impossibly massive the observable universe is.

NGC 2276 was notably featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies from 1966 – once for its unusual spiral arms and again due its relationship with NGC 2300.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/89862-hubble-space-telescope-takes-closer-look-unusual-spiral.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

And I'm stuck here with a bunch of crypto miners trying to get the moon - which is less than 400,000 miles away.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I can't wait for the James Webb Space Telescope

You will wait, many many long extra years.

I really hope NASA has now realized that multiple smaller missions are much more dependable and return more bang for buck than one big, heavily delayed blockbuster.

That had better damn well work flawlessly.

 

[wiyosaya]

You will wait, many many long extra years.

I really hope NASA has now realized that multiple smaller missions are much more dependable and return more bang for buck than one big, heavily delayed blockbuster.

That had better damn well work flawlessly.

To accomplish JWST's task with multiple smaller missions would be technically far more complex.

 

[Avro Arrow]

It doesn't really matter. By the time we're able to make trips that far, the universe will have expanded to the point that the only stars that will truly exist to us will be in our local group.

 

[NicktheWVAHick]

What difference does it make? That picture was basically taken 120,000,000 years ago. It probably doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m more interested in the earth-bound asteroid that will render us extinct next Tuesday. There’s a lot of damage that I can do in 5 days. …

 

[RudyBob]

If nothing else it takes great pictures

 

[RudyBob]

It doesn't really matter. By the time we're able to make trips that far, the universe will have expanded to the point that the only stars that will truly exist to us will be in our local group.

Don't you watch Star Trek? LoL

 

[neeyik]

That picture was basically taken 120,000,000 years ago. It probably doesn’t even exist anymore.

On cosmic timescales, 120 million years is a mere blink of an eye - less so, really. During that time, our solar system has made around half an orbit of our galactic center, so NGC 2276 won't have changed at all; it'll still be there, looking much as it does now.

You will wait, many many long extra years.

Current launch target is October of this year. There has been some concerns over the fairing ejection system in ESA's Ariane 5 rocket, but the past 12 launches have all been okay. That said, given how much money JWT has cost and how long the project has been delayed, I should imagine the three space agencies involved will want to know that Ariane's fairing problems have been resolved before they fully commit.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Don't you watch Star Trek? LoL

Of course I do... well, I did... until I saw that the Klingons:

Apparently cross-bred with the Gorn:

And ended up with whatever the hell THIS is (a Klingorn? ):

And then of course... is this (beautiful ship) a Klingon Bird-of-Prey?:

or is THIS (FUGLY thing) a Klingo(r)n Bird-of-Prey?

It looks like a dried-out bird skeleton FFS!

After they did this, I've had a VERY hard time taking Star Trek seriously because it's clear that the ones who are producing it don't. They seem to think that Trek ships should look like they belong in Warhammer 40K.

 

[RudyBob]

Of course I do... well, I did... until I saw that the Klingons:

Apparently cross-bred with the Gorn:

And ended up with whatever the hell THIS is (a Klingorn? ):

And then of course... is this (beautiful ship) a Klingon Bird-of-Prey?:

or is THIS (FUGLY thing) a Klingo(r)n Bird-of-Prey?

After they did this, I've had a VERY hard time taking Star Trek seriously because it's clear that the ones who are producing it don't. They seem to think that Trek ships should look like they belong in Warhammer 40K.

Cherish the Gorn !!

 

[Avro Arrow]

Cherish the Gorn !!

Funny as hell and disturbing at the same time.