NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 4945

For such a close galaxy, NGC 4945 is easy to miss. NGC 4945 [ http://www.aao.gov.…] is a spiral galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in the Centaurus Group of galaxies, located only six times farther away than the prominent Andromeda Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The thin disk galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] is oriented nearly edge-on, however, and shrouded in dark dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Therefore galaxy-gazers searching the southern constellation of Centaurus [ http://www.astro.wi…] need a telescope to see it. The above picture [ http://www.eso.org/…] was taken with a large telescope [ http://www.ls.eso.o…] testing a new wide-angle, high-resolution CCD camera [ http://www.ls.eso.o…]. Most of the spots scattered about the frame are foreground stars in our own Galaxy, but some spots are globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] orbiting the distant galaxy. NGC 4945 [ http://astro.ph.uni…] is thought to be quite similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. X-ray [ http://imagine.gsfc…] observations reveal, however, that NGC 4945 has an unusual, energetic, Seyfert [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] 2 nucleus that might house a large black hole [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].

2P2 Team [ http://www.ls.eso.o…], WFI [ http://www.ls.eso.o…], MPG/ESO 2.2-m Telescope [ http://www.ls.eso.o…], La Silla [ http://www.ls.eso.o…], ESO [ http://www.eso.org/]

galaxy

spiral

Milky Way Galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Washington, D.C.

ESO

Andromeda

Centaurus

spiral galaxy

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap990412