June 3, 2016
Every birthday is a reminder that you are made of the same material as the stars overhead — carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, all cooked in stellar...
NGC 4631: The Whale Galaxy
Birthday · June 3, 2016
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APOD published June 3, 2016. Credit: Martin Pugh. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy. Seen edge-on, it lies only 25 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. The galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others its popular moniker, The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this sharp color image, the galaxy's yellowish core, dark dust clouds, bright blue star clusters, and red star forming regions are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4627 is just above the Whale Galaxy. Faint star streams seen in deep images are the remnants of small companion galaxies disrupted by repeated encounters with the Whale in the distant past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in X-rays.
Image credit: Martin Pugh