Starship Asterisk*

[quote="BDanielMayfield"]Very nice image today :!: It's unusual, very instructive, and, as a bonus, it's not a weekend rerun so we won't be bothered by tedious complaints. :lol2:[/quote]

Hi BDanielMayfield.

It is a rerun but a good and welcome one, as I recognised it at once as having been used before (on checking it was the APOD of November 10 2012). :thumb_up:

PS. I did add another smilie but the limit is 3 and I found that includes any already in a quote!

I would love to see a HaLRGB image of this galaxy by Adam Block!

[quote="JohnD"]We are oft-time told that colliding galaxies are innocuous to individual stars, as the distances between them are so great.
But look at the turmoil in the polar component! The extensive - nay 'continuous - star forming in that ring must make it a dangerous place to be![/quote]
Or maybe a healthy place. The risk is from nearby supernovas. And that risk is real to established species. But it might also provide a trigger to increased speciation. So a planet finding itself for a few million years in a star forming region might also result in the formation of life, or in greater diversity and complexity.

Very nice image today :!: It's unusual, very instructive, and, as a bonus, it's not a weekend rerun so we won't be bothered by tedious complaints. :lol2:

"f-stop" is the obvious name for this galaxy.

We are oft-time told that colliding galaxies are innocuous to individual stars, as the distances between them are so great.
But look at the turmoil in the polar component! The extensive - nay 'continuous - star forming in that ring must make it a dangerous place to be!

JOhn

Fascinating and interesting...and it looks like....X Marks the Spot.... :D

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[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141108.html][img]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_141108.jpg[/img] [size=150]Polar Ring Galaxy NGC 660[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] NGC 660 is featured in [url=http://www.gemini.edu/node/11896]this cosmic snapshot[/url], a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter image data from the Gemini North telescope [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090219.html]on Mauna Kea[/url]. Over 20 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisces_(constellation)]constellation Pisces[/url], NGC 660's peculiar appearance marks it as [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070216.html]a polar ring galaxy[/url]. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies have a substantial population of stars, gas, and dust [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990510.html]orbiting in rings[/url] nearly perpendicular to the plane of the galactic disk. [url=http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301391]The bizarre-looking configuration[/url] could have been caused by the chance capture of material from a passing galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris eventually strung out in a rotating ring. The violent gravitational interaction would account for the myriad pinkish star forming regions scattered along NGC 660's ring. [url=http://www.obspm.fr/polar-ring-galaxies-and-dark-matter.html?lang=en]The polar ring component[/url] can also be used to explore the shape of the galaxy's otherwise unseen [url=http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/darkhalo.htm]dark matter halo[/url] by calculating the [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/dark_matter/index.html]dark matter's[/url] gravitational influence on the rotation of the ring and disk. Broader than the disk, NGC 660's ring spans over 50,000 light-years.

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