Moody and misty

NGC 247

The spiral galaxy NGC 247 may not look particularly spiral, but it's a 75,000 light year across galaxy not too dissimilar to our Milky Way, the difference being from Earth, it appears near side-on, hiding the arms and features we associate with a spiral.

One interesting aside is the Burbidge's Chain, 4 galaxies lined up, and with the left two appearing to show some kind of star connection between them.

NGC 5668

90 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Virgo lies this barred spiral galaxy, and it has a fair amount in common with our Milky Way, similar in size and mass, but it's blue colour gives away a few differences too, as this galaxy is producing stars 60% more than our own galaxy.

Hubble recently took this beautiful image, to help astronomers understand why.

It's thought the process is driven by two factors, firstly the oval shape of the central bar, seems to produce conditions which feed dust and gas that then in significant quantities form stars.

Secondly there's also a flow of dust and gas outwards towards the halo, leaving the disk and moving towards this faint structure, you can see significant star formation on the outer edges, like diamonds.

The movement of dust and gas causes a bow shockwave which in turn collects more dust and gas that was sitting around, making areas of very dense material that can form stars.

storm brew