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Credit & Copyright: Top Panel:
R. Windhorst, S. Driver
(ASU),
W. Keel
(Univ. Alabama),
Bottom Panel: J. Colbert, M. Rich, M. Malkan (UCLA), J. Frogel, S. Salim (Ohio State)
Explanation:
Pick a galaxy,
any galaxy.
In the top panel you can
choose from a myriad of
distant galaxies
revealed in a deep Hubble Space Telescope image of a narrow slice of
the cosmos toward the constellation
Hercules.
If you picked the distorted reddish galaxy indicated by the yellow box,
then you've chosen one a team of infrared astronomers has recently
placed at a distance of 9 billion light-years.
Classified as an ERO (Extremely Red Object), this galaxy is
from a time
when the
Universe was only one third its
present age.
Along the bottom panel, this galaxy's
appearance
in filters ranging from visible to infrared
wavelengths
(left to right) is presented as a series of negative images.
The brightness of the galaxy in the infrared compared
to the visible suggests that light from intense star
formation activity, reddened by dust clouds within
the galaxy itself, is responsible for the extremely red color.
Astronomers estimate that this galaxy has around 100 billion stars
and may in fact be a very distant mirror -- an
analog
of our own
Milky Way
Galaxy in its
formative years.
Bottom Panel: J. Colbert, M. Rich, M. Malkan (UCLA), J. Frogel, S. Salim (Ohio State)
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: deep field - extremely red object - infrared - Milky Way - galaxies
Publications with words: deep field - extremely red object - infrared - Milky Way - galaxies
See also:
- APOD: 2024 August 7 Á Milky Way Behind Three Merlons
- APOD: 2024 August 5 Á Milky Way Over Tunisia
- APOD: 2024 August 4 Á Gaia: Here Comes the Sun
- APOD: 2024 July 29 Á Milky Way over Uluru
- APOD: 2024 July 22 Á Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas
- APOD: 2024 May 29 Á Stairway to the Milky Way
- APOD: 2024 April 15 Á The Cigar Galaxy from Hubble and Webb