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.
Explanation:
Why are there faint rings around this spiral galaxy?
Possibly because the galaxy,
NGC 4911, is being pulled at by its neighbors as it falls into the enormous
Coma Cluster of Galaxies.
If NGC 4911 ends up like most of the galaxies in the
central Coma cluster, it will become a yellowish
elliptical galaxy,
losing not only its outer layers, but dust, gas, and its cadre of surrounding
satellite galaxies as well.
Currently, however,
this process is just beginning.
Visible in the above deep image from the
Hubble Space Telescope are NGC 4911's bright nucleus, distorted spiral arms laced with dark dust, clusters of recently formed stars, unusual faint outer rings, dwarf companion galaxies, and even faint
globular clusters of stars.
Far in the distance many unassociated galaxies
from the early universe are visible, some even through
NGC 4911 itself.
The Coma Cluster contains over 1,000 galaxies making it among the most massive objects known.
NGC 4911 can be found to the lower left of the great cluster's center.
