Spitzer images out-of-this-world galaxy
Thursday, July 23, 2009 - 13:14
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has imaged a wild creature of the dark - a coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its centre. The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years away. It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The 'eye' at the centre of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this colour-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white...