* Image Acquisition: iTelescope-Portugal.
* Processing: Ruben Barbosa.
* Distance: 65 Mly.
The Fornax Galaxy Cluster is located about 65 million light-years in the Southern Hemisphere and is the second closest galactic cluster on Earth.
Structures like this are quite common in the Universe and illustrate well the powerful influence that gravity exerts over great distances, causing the masses of galaxies to join together in one region.
The cluster of the Fornax contains about 60 galaxies, represented in the image by yellowish spots, to which are added many others of much smaller dimension. The following objects stand out:
* NGC 1399, located at its center (in the middle of the three bright diffuse globules that can be seen to the left of the image). It is assumed here to be a place of galactic cannibalism, the strongest evidence being attributed to a blue bridge, not visible in this image, possibly formed by young stars, which links it to NGC 1387;
* NGC 1365 reveals regions of intense star formation at the extremities of the prominent bar, along the spiral arms and dust clouds that traverse its bright nucleus. Three supernovae have already been observed: SN 1957C in 1957, SN 1983V in 1983 and SN 2001du in 2001.
* See also: [url= http://www.astrobin.com/324378/0/] NGC 1365, Close-up[/url].
Comments