A hidden treasure in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Hello ATS!
This was posted yesterday on the ESA/HUBBLE website. Enjoy!

Large Magellanic Cloud

Nearly 200 000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, floats in space, in a long and slow dance around our galaxy. Vast clouds of gas within it slowly collapse to form new stars. In turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colours, visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is ablaze with star-forming regions. From the Tarantula Nebula, the brightest stellar nursery in our cosmic neighbourhood, to LHA 120-N 11, part of which is featured in this Hubble image, the small and irregular galaxy is scattered with glowing nebulae, the most noticeable sign that new stars are being born.

LHA 120-N 11 (known as N11 for short) is a particularly bright region of the LMC, consisting of several adjacent pockets of gas and star formation. NGC 1769 (in the centre of this image) and NGC 1763 (to the right, see heic1011) are among the brightest parts.

In the centre of this image, a dark finger of dust blots out much of the light. While nebulae are mostly made of hydrogen, the simplest and most plentiful element in the Universe, dust clouds are home to heavier and more complex elements, which go on to form rocky planets like the Earth. Much finer than household dust (it is more like smoke), this interstellar dust consists of material expelled from previous generations of stars as they died.

Wow! Even space recycles!

I'm new to a lot of this so my posts may be minimal but since i've started visiting these sites i'm learning more and more about what's out there, hundreds of thousands of light-years away. It's incredible.
The scientific explanations can be complicated for people like me but the pictures are stunning none the less.


Just thought I would add this.

The data in this image were identified by Josh Lake, an astronomy teacher at Pomfret School in Connecticut, USA, in the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.

Please visit the link for more information and full size pictures.

reply to post by SilentE


Brilliant!
I've always been fascinated by our "satellite" galaxies.. Can you imagine how the night-sky looks over there? Watching the Milky Way from the outside but still very very close...
I salivate at the thought...

Good post, S & F for ya!

Originally posted by drakus
reply to post by SilentE

 

Brilliant!
I've always been fascinated by our "satellite" galaxies.. Can you imagine how the night-sky looks over there? Watching the Milky Way from the outside but still very very close...
I salivate at the thought...

Good post, S & F for ya!

I often daydream about viewing things from a different perspective.
Like a planet with two suns for example or what our world would look like to an ant or even a microorganism.
Maybe somewhere far out there in deep space, there's a telescope taking images of our galaxy.
Thanks for your reply.

reply to post by SilentE


I'm a huge fan of Hubble images and collect every image I can get my hands on. I continuously change my desktop background with nothing but Hubble pics.

Thanks for the new background. It's just as awe inspiring as every image before it.

posters deserve a lot more credit for sharing this kind of info, S+F and my thanks, blooming awesome!

Originally posted by skalla
posters deserve a lot more credit for sharing this kind of info, S+F and my thanks, blooming awesome!

This is true!
It has become some what of a habit for me now. I post them here so others can learn a little bit about the space that surrounds us and the pictures that go with them are awe-inspiring.
Thanks for your reply.

Originally posted by silverking
reply to post by SilentE

 

I'm a huge fan of Hubble images and collect every image I can get my hands on. I continuously change my desktop background with nothing but Hubble pics.

Thanks for the new background. It's just as awe inspiring as every image before it.

You're welcome. Check out the link in my signature. (If you haven't seen it already) Hubble released a merry christmas image and it's one of the best i've seen.
I'm not sure if i've ever seen an image on the Hubble website that I didn't like. You can get lost in the detail and the thoughts that they bring up. Some of them are enough to make you go.. ''How the....what the....?!
Thanks for your reply.

reply to post by SilentE


We truly live in an amazing time when we get to be the first humans to have a glimpse at what lies beyond our small rock. As I understand it, the large magellianic cloud is roughly 1,690,000,000,000,000,000 km or 179,000 light years away. Let's just say, we aren't going there anytime soon but at least we can grasp the beauty of what exists ,or from our perspective, existed almost 200,000 light years from our location using tools like Hubble.

Just imagine what accomplishments will take place a century from today, how tools like Hubble will be one of the historical achievements that everyone gives credit to for contributing to the advancement of knowledge about the universe. We will all be the envy of many due to our timely existence. Yes, in a way, we're all gonna be famous.

What an amazing time to be alive! Thanks again for the reminder.

Originally posted by silverking
reply to post by SilentE

 

We truly live in an amazing time when we get to be the first humans to have a glimpse at what lies beyond our small rock. As I understand it, the large magellianic cloud is roughly 1,690,000,000,000,000,000 km or 179,000 light years away. Let's just say, we aren't going there anytime soon but at least we can grasp the beauty of what exists ,or from our perspective, existed almost 200,000 light years from our location using tools like Hubble.

Just imagine what accomplishments will take place a century from today, how tools like Hubble will be one of the historical achievements that everyone gives credit to for contributing to the advancement of knowledge about the universe. We will all be the envy of many due to our timely existence. Yes, in a way, we're all gonna be famous.

What an amazing time to be alive! Thanks again for the reminder.

I found this article here on universe today and thought it had has some interesting info.
The article says that the LMC is located about 160,000 light-years away but i've seen on other sites that the number is bang on what you said. 179,000 light-years away.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is only about 1/10th the mass of the Milky Way, containing a mere 10 billion stars worth of mass. This makes it the 4th most massive galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies, after Andromeda, the Milky Way and the Triangulum Galaxies.

It’s considered an irregular galaxy, without the grand spiral shape that we see with other galaxies, but it does have a prominent central bar. It’s possible that the Large Magellanic Cloud was once a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but a near pass with our galaxy or another distorted its shape, wiping away the spiral formation.

You can see the Large Magellanic Cloud with the unaided eye; no telescope is necessary. It’s visible as a faint cloud in the night sky, right on the border between the constellations of Dorado and Mensa. With a good pair of binoculars, you can see it much better; and it’s even bigger and brighter in a small telescope.

For anyone living in the southern hemisphere, this applies to you guys. Unfortunately for any northern hemisphere dwellers, ...unlucky!...

This was what intrigued me most.

In 1987, a supernova detonated in the Large Magellanic Cloud – the brightest supernova seen in 300 years. For a brief time, the supernova was visible with the unaided eye. The supernova remnant is still being studied as it continues to evolve and expand.

And finally, here's another image of the LMC taken in infrared light.

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Thanks for your reply.