Thursday, February 8, 2007

Galaxies Away


Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)
Acknowledgment: J. Blakeslee (Washington State University)
Explanation: This stunning group of galaxies is far, far away - about 450 million light-years from planet Earth - cataloged as galaxy cluster Abell S0740. Dominated by the cluster's large central elliptical galaxy (ESO 325-G004), this sharp Hubble view takes in a remarkable assortment of galaxy shapes and sizes with only a few spiky foreground stars scattered through the field. The giant elliptical galaxy spans over 100,000 light years and contains about 100 billion stars, comparable in size to our own spiral Milky Way. The Hubble data reveal a wealth of detail in even these distant galaxies, including magnificent arms and dust lanes, star clusters, ring structures, and gravitational lensing arcs.

4 comments:

The Merry Widow said...

Oh gosh, another keeper!
Beautiful, our G*D is Magnificent!

tmw

Eyes said...

Now THAT's a family portrait!

American Crusader said...

The immensity of space. I'd never get enough of it. In the Coast Guard we would cruise off the coast of the Bahamas and on a night without a moon, the sky was unbelievable. Especially when using the "Big Eyes" when on watch. Orian is by far my favorite night object.

Eyes said...

We went to St Martin the year of Hally's Comet, and saw it from a Catermerand (I'm sure I made lots of typos... sorry). Anyhow it was amazing!