Whirlpool Galaxy (aka M51 or NGC 5194) is a galaxy that looks like a whilrpool tangled with a companion galaxy NGC 5195). M51 is located 20 million light-years away. One of the images reveals strange material that bridges the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion. Another unique thing about the galaxy, is that it contains a large number of red filaments between the spiral arms, sharply contrasting with the beady nature of dust emission in the arms themselves.
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Andromeda galaxy is our neighbor, the closest major galaxy to our Milky Way, and can be seen as a fuzzy blob with a naked eye on a clear, dark sky. According to Messier's catalog, it's classified as M31. In our night sky it occupies a region equivalent to 7 full moons. It is located 2.5 million light-years away in the constallation Andromeda.
Cassiopeia A is an exploded star in the Cassiopeia constellation. It is the brightest astronomical radio-wave source in the sky, which means the pre-existing star was a very massive object. What you see in the pictures are expanding waves of star material after the explosion. The explosion occured about 11,000 years away in the Milky Way galaxy. The expanding cloud is now approximately 10 light-years across, and continues expanding at a speed of 4000-6000 km/s, with jets shooting out at 5,500-14,000 km/s in different directions.
Today's wonder from space, is a sight that looks like a giant mask with eyes. What you see as eyes in the sky, are actually two galaxies colliding. Those galaxies are NGC 2207 and IC 2163. The mask around the eyes are the spiral arms of the two galaxies.
In today's galaxy exploration, we look at a beautiful galaxy that looks like a cartwheel. The galaxy is part of a group of galaxies about 400 million light-years away in the constallation Sculptor. It is one of the most powerful Ultraviolet wave emitters in the nearby universe. It is believed associations of stars 5 to 20 times more massive than our Sun are present in the galaxy.
Kepler's Supernova Remnant is a cloud from an exploded star in our Milky Way galaxy. Other names for this object are Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova, or Kepler's Star. The supernova was named after a famous astronomer after he published a book on the subject called De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii ("On the new star in Ophiuchus's foot").
M104 is named as such after it has been catalogued into Messier's catalogue. Messier 104 Galaxy is commonly known as Sombrero galaxy because it resembles a type of a Mexican hat, when viewed in visible light. When viewed through Spitzer's telescope's infrared view though, the galaxy looks like a "bull's eye". When viewed from Earth, the galaxy is seen almost edge-on, just 6 degrees from its equitorial plane.
M81 galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the constallation Ursa Major. The galaxy features a bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. M81 harbors a black hole in its nucleus, 70 million times more massive than our Sun. Only one supernova has been detected in the galaxy. This supernova is the second brightest supernova seen in modern times.
