                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 October 9
                                      [2]
                  NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble
  Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive [3] , NASA [4] , ESA [5] ; Processing &
            Copyright: Domingo Pestana [6]  & Raul Villaverde [7]

Explanation: Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own
Milky Way Galaxy [8]  is thought to have a modest central bar [9] .
Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here, was captured in
spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope
[10] . Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes [11] , young clusters [12]  of
bright blue stars, red emission nebulas [13]  of glowing hydrogen gas, a long
bright bar of stars [14]  across the center, and a bright active nucleus [15]
that likely houses a supermassive black hole [16] . Light takes about 60
million years to reach us from NGC 1672 [17] , which spans about 75,000 light
years [18]  across. NGC 1672 [19] , which appears toward the constellation of
the Dolphinfish (Dorado [20] ), is being studied [21]  to find out how a
spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions.

                      Tomorrow's picture: smaller swirl

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1810/NGC1672_Hubble_3600.jpg
  [3] https://hla.stsci.edu/
  [4] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [5] https://www.esa.int/
  [6] https://www.flickr.com/photos/122467237@N08/
  [7] https://www.flickr.com/photos/113243238@N08/
  [8] ap000130.html
  [9] ap050825.html
  [10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
  [11] ap060219.html
  [12] open_clusters.html
  [13] emission_nebulae.html
  [14]
http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve/
  [15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_galactic_nucleus
  [16] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html
  [17] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2007/15/caption.html
  [18] http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/cosmic_distance.html
  [19] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGuct0CGHiA
  [20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorado
  [21] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ApJ...734...33J
  [22] ap181008.html
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