Sunday, September 12, 2010

APOD 1.2

NGC 4911: Spiral Diving into a Dense Cluster

What an incredible picture! I had no idea that we had the technology to take a photograph of an entire galaxy! I learned that NGC 4911 is one of the millions of spiral galaxy.  It is currently in the beginning of the process of becoming an elliptical galaxy, which means it will be nearly featureless.  NGC 4911 is being pulled at by neighboring galaxies causing faint rings around it.  This constant pulling will eventually cause the spiral galaxy to fall into the Coma Cluster of Galaxies, one of the most massive objects known.  When this happens dust, gas, and surrounding satellite galaxies from NGC 4911 will be lost, and the galaxy will turn a yellowish color.

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