Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

NGC1365: Majestic Island Universe

ImageCredit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

Explanation:Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward thechemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of thewell-studied Fornax galaxy cluster. This impressively sharp color image showsintense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms,and details of dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the corelies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent barplays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into astar-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central blackhole.

宏伟的宇宙岛NGC1365

解释：棒旋星系NGC1365是一个宏伟的宇宙岛，宽约20万光年，距离我们约6000万光年，位于天炉座方向，是天炉星系团的主导成员。这幅清晰的彩色影像显示出星系棒的两端和沿着旋臂的剧烈的恒星形成区，以及横切过明亮星系核的尘埃通道的细节。在星系核处有一个超大质量黑洞。天文学家认为，NGC1365的星系棒在星系演化中起了重要作用，把气体和尘埃吸入一个正在形成恒星的大旋涡，并最终把物质喂进中心黑洞。