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Anne’s Picture of the Day: Spiral Galaxy NGC 1350
read more at Anne’s Astronomy News http://annesastronomynews.com/
May 9, 2013
NGC 1350, a barred spiral galaxy in Fornax
Image Credit: ESO
NGC 1350 is a barred spiral galaxy of some 130,000 light-years across (slightly larger than our Milky Way), located about 87 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax (the Furnace), while it is receding from us at approximately 1905 kilometers per second. This means that, 87 million years ago, when the light we now record left NGC 1350, the galaxy was 530,000 light-years closer to us.
Also, our Solar System, including the Sun, was – 87 million years ago – 60,000 light-years away from where it now stands. That is because the Sun rotates around the center of the Milky Way (it completes a full circle in about 200 million years).
NGC 1350 is classified as an Sa(r) type galaxy, meaning it is a spiral with tightly wound arms and large central regions. In fact, NGC 1350 lies at the border between the broken-ring spiral type and a grand design spiral with two major outer arms.
Its spiral arms, inhabited by young blue star clusters, form a prominent central ring and a rather faint outer ring. This outer ring originates at the inner main ring and can be traced for almost half a circle when they each meet the opposite arm, giving the impression of completing a second outer ring. The viewing angle and the two rings make NGC 1350 look somewhat like a cosmic “eye.”
The blue tint of the arms indicates the presence of very young and massive stars. The dust, seen as small fragmented spirals in the central part of the galaxy, bears resemblance with blood vessels in the eye, is also a signature of the formation of stars.
The outer parts of the galaxy are so tenuous that many background galaxies can be seen shining through them. Some of these may reside as far as several billion light-years away, i.e. the light from these galaxies was emitted when the Sun and the Earth had not yet formed.
Even though, for earth-based astronomers, NGC 1350 is seen on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, it is most probably not one of its members, because the cluster lies closer to Earth, at about 65 million light-years distance.
This image is an almost-true color composite image with a total exposure time of only 16 minutes, made on 26 Jan 2000 with the VLT’s 8.2 meter Kueyen telescope, located on the 2,600 meter high Cerro Paranal in the Chilean Andes. Observations were done using the following 4 filters: B (blue), V (green), R (orange), and I (red). North is to the left and East is down.
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Source: http://annesastronomynews.com/annes-picture-of-the-day-spiral-galaxy-ngc-1350/
