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date stamped on slide July 1971
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This image features NGC 3783, a bright barred spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth, that also lends its name to the eponymous NGC 3783 galaxy group. Like galaxy clusters, galaxy groups are aggregates of gravitationally bound galaxies. Galaxy groups, however, are less massive and contain fewer members than galaxy clusters do: where galaxy clusters can contain hundreds or even thousands of constituent galaxies, galaxy groups do not typically include more than 50. The Milky Way is actually part of a galaxy group, known as the Local Group, which contains two other large galaxies (Andromeda and the Triangulum galaxy), as well as several dozen satellite and dwarf galaxies. The NGC 3783 galaxy group, meanwhile, contains 47 galaxies. It also seems to be at a fairly early stage of its evolution, making it an interesting object of study.
Whilst the focus of this image is the spiral galaxy NGC 3783, the eye is equally drawn to the very bright object in the lower right part of this image. This is the star HD 101274. The perspective in this image makes the star and the galaxy look like close companions, but this is an illusion. HD 101274 lies only about 1530 light-years from Earth, meaning it is about 85 thousand times closer than NGC 3783. This explains how a single star can appear to outshine an entire galaxy!
NGC 3783 is a type-1 Seyfert galaxy, which is a galaxy with a bright central region — so it’s particularly bright itself, as far as galaxies go. In this image it is recorded by Hubble in incredible detail, from its glowing central bar to its narrow, winding arms and the dust threaded through them, thanks to five separate images taken in different wavelengths of light. In fact, the galactic centre is bright enough to Hubble that it exhibits diffraction spikes, normally only seen on stars such as HD 101274.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy, seen face-on to the viewer. The bright centre of the galaxy is crossed by a glowing bar, and it is surrounded by tightly-wound spiral arms, forming a circular shape with relatively clear edges. Faraway galaxies can be seen around it, along with a few bright stars, on a dark background. One star to the right of the galaxy is very large and extremely bright with long diffraction spikes around it.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario; CC BY 4.0
Tags: NGC 3783 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology HST Hubble Space Telescope Galaxy Supernova NASA Creative Commons Stars Star barred spiral galaxy HD 101274 type-1 Seyfert galaxy
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Early on 8 April 2024, a citizen scientist found a comet in images from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). It follows the recent discovery of SOHO’s 5000th comet. But this one – named Comet SOHO-5008 – was special for a different reason.
Karl Battams (US Naval Research Lab), manager of the SOHO Sungrazer Project, predicted that comet SOHO-5008 would be visible during the total solar eclipse, which was due to plunge parts of the United States and Mexico into darkness later that very same day.
Petr Horálek, from the Institute of Physics in Opava (Czechia), was in Mexico for the eclipse. The clouds cleared and Petr could take this beautiful shot of the Sun’s awe-inspiring corona. To the lower left of the Sun, Comet SOHO-5008 is revealed.
Soon after Petr captured the comet on camera, it met its demise, coming so close to the Sun that it disintegrated.
Observations of these ‘sungrazing’ comets from the ground are extremely rare, and this sighting was only possible thanks to the total solar eclipse.
The image is a composite of 100 frames, with the wide corona imaged at a focal length of 200 mm (exposure time from 1/4000 to 2 seconds) and the inner corona imaged at a focal length of 1100 mm (exposure time from 1/500 to 4 seconds).
SOHO’s prowess as a comet-hunter was unplanned, but turned out to be an unexpected success. With its clear view of the Sun’s surroundings, SOHO can easily spot sungrazing comets. This has made it the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history.
Click here to see the image without the inset.
SOHO is a cooperative effort between ESA and NASA. Mission control is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO), the instrument that provides most of the comet imagery, was built by an international consortium, led by the US Naval Research Lab.
Credits: Petr Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava), Josef Kujal (Astronomy Society in Hradec Králové), Milan Hlaváč
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology SOHO Comet SOHO-5008 Comet Solar Eclipse Eclipse Mexico Corona Sun Moon
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The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured a rare, almost cloud-free image over the Mekong Delta and the city of Can Tho in southwest Vietnam.
The Mekong Delta is a vast flood plain formed by the longest river in southeast Asia, the Mekong, which can be seen in the top right corner of the image. Its exceptionally fertile soil has established the area as one of the world’s richest agricultural regions.
The extensive patchwork of rice paddy fields can be seen across the image, intersected by an intricate web of irrigation and drainage canals. Vietnam is one of the world’s top rice producers and this region is often labelled Vietnam’s ‘rice bowl’.
Different colours in the fields could signify either different stages in plant growth or different agriculture methods being used for the crops. The various colours could also be the result of a common agricultural practice in the area: post-harvest, many fields are burned to clear and prepare for the next planting cycle. Recently burned fields appear black, while those where some time has passed since burning appear in shades of brown. Notably, wisps of smoke can be spotted, particularly in the left of the image, over some plots that were being burned at the time the image was captured.
There are very few roads in this area – the network of canals and waterways are used to transport people and products. All villages and cities in the area are therefore built along waterways.
The large river in the image, south of the Mekong, is the Hau River, a major branch of the lower Mekong River. On its left bank lies Can Tho, the largest city of the delta region and visible as a large grey area.
A large inland port, Can Tho is renowned for floating markets and for picturesque rural canals. Zooming in northwest of the city reveals the clear outline of the Can Tho International Airport.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Space Technology Earth from Space Observing the Earth Earth Observation Earth Explorer Satellite image Sentinel Copernicus Mekong Delta Vietnam Can Tho southeast Asia Mekong rice paddy fields Mekong River Can Tho International Airport
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