Other
Scientific paper
Sep 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005eso..presp..31.&link_type=abstract
ESO Press Release, 09/2005
Other
Scientific paper
Eighty-five million years ago on small planet Earth, dinosaurs ruled, ignorant of their soon-to-come demise in the great Jurassic extinction, while mammals were still small and shy creatures. The southern Andes of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina were not yet formed and South America was still an island continent.
Eighty-five million years ago, our Sun and its solar system was 60,000 light years away from where it now stands [1].
Eighty-five million years ago, in another corner of the Universe, light left the beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1350, for a journey across the universe. Part of this light was recorded at the beginning of the year 2000 AD by ESO's Very Large Telescope, located on the 2,600m high Cerro Paranal in the Chilean Andes on planet Earth.
Astronomers classify NGC 1350 as an Sa(r) type galaxy, meaning it is a spiral with large central regions. In fact, NGC 1350 lies at the border between the broken-ring spiral type and a grand design spiral with two major outer arms. It is about 130,000 light-years across and, hence, is slightly larger than our Milky Way.
The rather faint and graceful outer arms originate at the inner main ring and can be traced for almost half a circle when they each meet the opposite arm, giving the impression of completing a second outer ring, the "eye". The arms are given a blue tint as a result of the presence of very young and massive stars. The amount of dust, seen as small fragmented dust spirals in the central part of the galaxy and producing a fine tapestry that bear resemblance with blood vessels in the eye, is also a signature of the formation of stars.
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