Large spiral galaxy NGC 1055 (top left) joins spiral M77 in this lovely cosmic view [
http://www.robgendl…] toward the constellation Cetus [
http://hawastsoc.or…]. The narrowed, dusty appearance of edge-on spiral NGC 1055 contrasts nicely with the face-on view of M77's bright [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] nucleus and spiral arms. Both over 100,000 light-years across, the pair are dominant members of a small galaxy group about 60 million light-years away. At that estimated distance, M77 is [
http://www.seds.org…] one of the most remote objects in Charles Messier's catalog [
http://en.wikipedia…] and is separated from fellow island universe NGC 1055 by at least 500,000 light-years. The mosaicked field is about the size of the full Moon on the sky [
http://members.aol.…] and includes colorful foreground Milky Way stars (with diffraction spikes [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]) along with more distant background galaxies.
Explanation
Large spiral galaxy NGC 1055 (top left) joins spiral M77 in this lovely cosmic view [
http://www.robgendl…] toward the constellation Cetus [
http://hawastsoc.or…]. The narrowed, dusty appearance of edge-on spiral NGC 1055 contrasts nicely with the face-on view of M77's bright [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] nucleus and spiral arms. Both over 100,000 light-years across, the pair are dominant members of a small galaxy group about 60 million light-years away. At that estimated distance, M77 is [
http://www.seds.org…] one of the most remote objects in Charles Messier's catalog [
http://en.wikipedia…] and is separated from fellow island universe NGC 1055 by at least 500,000 light-years. The mosaicked field is about the size of the full Moon on the sky [
http://members.aol.…] and includes colorful foreground Milky Way stars (with diffraction spikes [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]) along with more distant background galaxies.
Explanation
