NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

NGC 1569: Heavy Elements from a Small Galaxy

For astronomers, elements other than hydrogen [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and helium [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] are sometimes considered to be simply "heavy elements". It's understandable really, because even lumped all together heavy elements make up an exceedingly small fraction [ http://csep10.phys.…composition.html ] of the Universe. Still, heavy elements can profoundly influence galaxy and star formation ... not to mention [ http://www.europhys…article1.html ] the formation of planets and people. In this tantalizing [ http://chandra.harv…] false-color x-ray image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harv…], small dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 [ http://www.seds.org…] is surrounded by x-ray emitting [ http://chandra.harv…] clouds of gas thousands of light-years across. The gas has recently been observed [ http://arXiv.org/ab…] to contain significant concentrations of astronomers' heavy elements such as oxygen, silicon, and magnesium, supporting the idea that dwarf galaxies, the most common type of galaxy in the Universe [ http://www.anzwers.…universe/galgrps.htm l ], are largely responsible for heavy elements in intergalactic space. A mere 7 million light-years distant toward the long-necked [ http://www.nature-w…] constellation Camelopardalis [ http://www.dibonsmi…], NGC 1569 has undergone a recent burst of star formation and stellar supernova explosions [ http://curious.astr…supernovae.php ]. The furious cosmic activity [ http://heasarc.gsfc…lessons/background-l ifecycles.html ] has heated the expanding gas clouds to temperatures of millions of degrees while enriching them with newly synthesized [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] heavy elements.

C. Martin (UCSB [ http://www.ucsb.edu] / Caltech [ http://www.caltech.…]), H. Kobulnicky (U. Wisconsin [ http://www.astro.wi…]), T. Heckman (Johns Hopkins [ http://pha.jhu.edu/]), CXC [ http://chandra.harv…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

x-ray

dwarf galaxy

ngc1569

heavy elements

dwarf galaxy

Wisconsin

NGC 1569

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Washington, D.C.

Sun

Camelopardalis

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap020725