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Credit & Copyright: R. Walterbos et al.
(NMSU),
Apache Point Obs.
Explanation:
Some galaxies are hard to find.
Besides being hidden behind the
dust and
bright foreground
stars of our
Milky Way Galaxy,
recently discovered
Cepheus 1 was missed previously
because it is so uniformly dim.
In fact, the first indication that any galaxy
was there at all came in the radio band from the Dwingeloo radio telescope in the Netherlands.
Close inspections of optical photographs like the
one above then revealed Cepheus 1 as the
low-surface brightness galaxy in the center.
Cepheus 1 turns out to be only about
20 million light years distant,
and so is one of the few
spiral galaxies
that live close by.
Low-surface brightness (LSB) galaxies
like Cepheus 1 are still being studied, but are known
to have relatively large separations
between bright stars, and to be more commonly
found away from other galaxies.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Local Group of Galaxies
Publications with words: Local Group of Galaxies
See also: