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#926962 03/24/18 08:43 AM
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Galaxies and star clusters are collections of stars held together by gravity. Galaxies are really big. But how big is big? Even bigger than a million stars? Yes. A million is small in astronomy.

Galaxy or Star Cluster

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Here's a beauty for you: star cluster NGC 602 near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a neighbor galaxy of our Milky Way.
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Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region, augmented by images in the X-ray by Chandra, and in the infrared by Spitzer. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Image Credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ.Potsdam/L.Oskinova et al;
Optical: Hubble: NASA/STScI; Infrared: Spitzer: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Text: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

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One of everybody's favorite star clusters the Pleiades aka the Seven Sisters. The blue streak is Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS) whose ion tail is blue.

Credit & Copyright: Tom Masterson (Transient Astronomer)

Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 03/25/18 04:35 PM.
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NGC 7789, also known as Caroline's Rose, is a star cluster some 8000 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered in the late18th century by Caroline Herschel and it has a flowery appearance in small telescopes.

Image Credit & Copyright: Guillaume Seigneuret

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Here are some galaxies - lots of them, notably nearby NGC 247, 11 million light years away in the constellation Cetus.
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About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, it dominates this telescopic field of view toward the southern constellation Cetus. The pronounced void on one side of the galaxy's disk recalls for some its popular name, the Needle's Eye galaxy. Many background galaxies are visible in this sharp galaxy portrait, including the remarkable string of four galaxies just below and left of NGC 247 known as Burbidge's Chain. Burbidge's Chain galaxies are about 300 million light-years distant. The deep image even reveals that the two leftmost galaxies in the chain are apparently interacting, joined by a faint bridge of material. NGC 247 itself is part of the Sculptor Group of galaxies along with the shiny spiral NGC 253.

Image Credit & Copyright: CHART32 Team, Processing - Johannes Schedler
Text: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

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Star Cluster NGC 362 - a globular cluster in the southern constellation Tucana.
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If our Sun were near the center of NGC 362, the night sky would glow like a jewel box of bright stars. Hundreds of stars would glow brighter than Sirius, and in many different colors. Although these stars could become part of breathtaking constellations and intricate folklore, it would be difficult for planetary inhabitants there to see -- and hence understand -- the greater universe beyond. NGC 362 is one of only about 170 globular clusters of stars that exist in our Milky Way Galaxy.

Image Credit: Hubble WFC3, NASA, ESA, J. Heyl, I. Caiazzo, & Javiera Parada (UBC)
Text: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

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It's M13 the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
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One of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky, telescopic views reveal the spectacular cluster's hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. Along with the cluster's dense core, the outer reaches of M13 are highlighted in this sharp color image. The cluster's evolved red and blue giant stars show up in yellowish and blue tints.


Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona
Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

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NGC 3344 is a face-on spiral galaxy about 20 million light years away in the constellation Leo Minor. The central region is dominated by yellowish older stars. New star formation occurs in the spiral arms - prominent are hot young blue stars and the red of emission nebula where hot stars energize hydrogen gas. The bright stars with the spikes are stars in our own galaxy.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

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Against a stunning backdrop of thousands of galaxies, this odd-looking galaxy (UGC 10214, dubbed the ‘Tadpole’) with the long streamer of stars appears to be racing through space, like a runaway pinwheel firework. Its distorted shape was caused by a small interloper, a very blue, compact, galaxy visible in the upper left corner of the more massive Tadpole. The Tadpole lies about 420 million light-years away in the constellation Draco.

Copyright NASA/ESA-ACS Science Team

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The Pinwheel Galaxy and a companion dwarf galaxy. Messier 101 (the Pinwheel Galaxy) and its dwarf companion NGC 5474 lie about 23 million light years from us in the constellatioin Ursa Major. Spiral galaxy M101 is nearly twice as big as the Milky Way and was one of the first galaxies whose spiral shape was observed. Nineteenth-century Irish astronomer Lord Rosse saw the spiral arms in his great telescope known as the Leviathan of Parsontown.

Image Credit & Copyright: Joonhwa Lee

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