2025年11月27日
Portrait of NGC 1055
Image Credit & Copyright: John Hayes
Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But telltale pinkish star forming regions and young blue star clusters are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy’s thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.
Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space
NGC 1055的肖像
影像提供与版权: John Hayes
说明: 美丽壮观的螺旋星系NGC 1055，是距离我们仅6000万光年的一个小型星系群中的主要成员，它位于鲸鱼座方向，那里水气弥漫，令人望而生畏。从侧面看，这个宛如宇宙岛屿的星系跨越超过10万光年，比我们所在的银河系略大。点缀着NGC 1055这幅宇宙肖像的色彩斑斓、尖锐的恒星位于前景，它们都位于银河系之内。然而，在遥远星系薄盘蜿蜒的尘埃带中，散布着一些显著的粉红色的恒星形成区和年轻的蓝色星团，它们正是NGC 1055的标志性特征。除了零星散布的更遥远的背景星系外，这张深空影像还显示了一个盒状银晕，它向NGC 1055中心核球和盘状结构的上方和下方延伸很远。银晕本身布满了暗淡的狭窄结构，这可能代表了来自 大约100亿年前 被更大的旋涡星系瓦解的卫星星系中混合散落的残骸。
明日的图片: pixels in space
