NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Nov 16 2022

In the Arms of NGC 1097

Spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in the heated constellation Fornax. Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy above and right of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral's luminous core. That's not NGC 1097's only peculiar feature, though. This very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious jets, seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a supermassive black hole.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Earth Views from Artemis I Mission to the Moon

Watch live as the Orion spacecraft, after having launched into space aboard the Space Launch System 'SLS' rocket, shares its first Earth views during its outbound coast to the Moon. During Artemis I, Orion will travel 280,000 miles '450,000 km' from Earth and 40,000 miles '64,000 km' beyond the far side of the Moon, carrying science and technology payloads to expand our understanding of lunar science, technology developments, and deep space radiation.

Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone to send astronauts to Mars. We are going.

https://youtu.be/qxMqWHCTqGM