When you purchase through link on our website , we may realize an affiliate charge . Here ’s how it works .
What it is : helical galaxyNGC 6744
Where it is:30 million low-cal - year away in the configuration Pavo
DECam’s image of the NGC 6744, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way.
When it was shared : Aug. 21 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : Because we ’re embed within theMilky Wayand there ’s no fashion of transport spacecraft much further thanthe solar system ’s edge , astronomers have no way of taking an image of our home galaxy . So , to better understand how theMilky Waylooks from the outside , and to see more about how it form and is evolving , scientists have to study other spiral beetleweed . One of the best example is NGC 6744 , a spiral galaxy that ’s very standardized to our own .
With volute limb spanning 175,000 light - years across , NGC 6744 is larger than the Milky Way , which spans about 100,000 weak - years , allot toNASA . About 60 % of all galaxy are considered spirals , so most of the superstar in the macrocosm are located within them — and NGC 6744 is considered an archetype of this eccentric of coltsfoot .
This spectacular new persona of NGC 6744 features a undimmed core group and the lane of dust that fuel mavin shaping . To the left of NGC 6744 is a faint arm not seen in most images of the galaxy , while to the lower right , at the conclusion of a spiral branch , is a faint companion galaxy live as NGC 6744A.
colligate : James Webb telescope spots 6 tremendous ' rascal satellite ' acrobatics through space without a genius
— Space photo of the week : first - ever close - up of Neptune is Voyager 2 ’s last portrayal of a planet
— Space picture of the workweek : 900 alien worlds packed into a single figure of speech
— Space photo of the hebdomad : A untested lead sweep up its cosmic neighborhood in vibrant raw Hubble image
The prototype — one of the most elaborated of NGC 6744 ever taken — was created using the Dark Energy Camera ( DECam ) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4 - beat Telescope at the U.S. National Science Foundation ’s Cerro Tololo Inter - American Observatory , a program of NSF NOIRLab that ’s based on a mountaintop near La Serena in Chile . scientist are using DECam to construct the most extensive 3D mapping of the night sky ever made .
Cerro Tololo is also home to theVera C. Rubin Observatory , which in 2025 will utilise humanity ’s largest photographic camera to image the total southerly Hemisphere dark sky every three nights as part of a ground - breaking Legacy Survey of Space and Time ( LSST ) . The project aims to place anything that moves in the night sky , from supernova to comets and asteroids .
