A new paper by Merrow et al. claims that, rather than a transient structure arising more recently through secular evolution, the Milky Way's bar may have resulted from its last major merger event some 8-11 Ga ago.
Looking for gift ideas? Come check out my Underwater collection where you can order everything from wall art to mugs, from yoga mats to shower curtains, and more. All of these photos were taken by yours truly!
Interesting: This edge on spiral has a rich halo, feat. ~700 globular clusters and two stellar streams from two satellite galaxies that are being disrupted/eaten!
Was looking through old #astrophotography images and came across this - the furthest, and oldest light I have ever captured in our Universe, from my backyard.
Quasar 3C 232 at redshift ~0.533, which makes these photons about ~7.3 billion years old.
NGC 3067, a mere 67 million light-years away.
cannot begin to tell you how extremely luminous these things must be, for its light to be this bright that a small, 8" backyard telescope in city skies can see its light.
Of course, since this light left this object, the Universe has expanded, and so the light has been stretched or 'redshifted'.
Oh, and a fun fact about quasars, particularly, radio quasars.
Without them, you can't use your Google Maps, have self-driving cars, track natural disasters, or know where your aircraft is.
All of our GNSS needs knowledge of Earth's orientation in space!
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of NGC 7049 in the constellation of Indus, in the southern sky. The dust lanes, which appear as a lacy web, are backlit by the millions of stars in the galaxy's halo.
NGC 7727, the billion-year-old aftermath of a double spiral #galaxy collision. At the heart of this chaotic interaction, entwined and caught in the midst of the #chaos, is a pair of supermassive #blackholes — the closest such pair ever recorded from #Earth.
Interesting: The prominent bar structure is thought to feed gas that spirals inwards around the core. So, a grand-design spiral galaxy within a barred spiral galaxy!
I did not know that it is very probable that M74 galaxy hosts in its core not a supermasive but an intermediate size black hole of about 10000 solar masses. Though, this has not been confirmed yet. If indeed this is the case, then it will be the first intermediate black hole we have observed.
This was taken from my roof, in Mexico City. It is amazing that we're able to capture a distant object with off the shelf astronomy gear. #Astrodon#Space#astrophotography#astronomy#galaxies
From a dark sky, and using a simple DSLR, you can capture five galaxies, which make up part of our lil’ local cluster. The Milky Way (of course), the Magellanic Clouds visible to the eye and M31 + M33 to the camera.
I used a Canon DSLR with a Sony 4/24 lens (just a regular one) to take 30 sec exposures for the above pics. No darls, flats, etc.
Just point and shoot … hence they’re not the best photos!
But, it’s something anyone can do with no experience … see the cosmos on the grand scale!
Graphic by SkyFlubbler
(small typo in my graphic as well, "M33" for Andromeda should be "M31")
Gaia is so Accurate it Can Predict Microlensing Events
The ESA’s Gaia Observatory continues its astrometry mission, which consists of measuring the positions, distances, and motions of stars (and the positions of orbiting exoplanets) with unprecedented precision.
Astrometric microlensing can be used to make precise measurements of the masses of lens stars that are independent of their assumed internal physics. https://www.universetoday.com/164088/gaia-is-so-accurate-it-can-predict-microlensing-events/ Gaia #microlensing#astrometry#gravity#galaxies
Interesting: This almost edge-on beaut has a little warp and twist that is detected in optical, and the behind dust lane can just be seen. Also, lots of background galaxies!