Barnard's Galaxy with Bubble-shaped Nebula in Sagittarius | ESO

Barnard's Galaxy with Bubble-shaped Nebula in Sagittarius | ESO

Astronomers obtained this portrait of Barnard’s Galaxy using the Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. The image was made from data obtained through four different filters (B, V, R, and H-alpha). The field of view is 35 x 34 arcmin.

This montage shows four star-forming gas clouds in NGC 6822, a barred irregular dwarf galaxy, about 1.6 million light-years away.  The observations were made with the Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, the Very Large Array and by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Credit: ESO, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Schruba, VLA (NRAO)/Y. Bagetakos/Little THINGS

This image is a composite of older observations made with the Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory and new data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The observations by ALMA reveal the structure of star-forming gas clouds in unprecedented resolution.

Known as NGC 6822, this dwarf irregular galaxy is one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors 2 million light years away. The dwarf galaxy has no shortage of stellar splendor and pyrotechnics. Reddish nebulae in this image reveal regions of active star formation, wherein young, hot stars heat up nearby gas clouds. Also prominent in the upper left of this new image is a striking bubble-shaped nebula. At the nebula’s center, a clutch of massive, scorching stars send waves of matter smashing into surrounding interstellar material, generating a glowing structure that appears ring-like from our perspective. Other similar ripples of heated matter thrown out by feisty young stars are dotted across Barnard’s Galaxy.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Release Date: Oct. 14, 2009

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #DwarfGalaxy #NGC6822 #IrregularGalaxy #Nebula #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #LaSillaObservatory #Chile #Europe #STEM #Education