The Cosmic Jewels of Irregular Dwarf Galaxy Sextans A | Mayall Telescope

The Cosmic Jewels of Irregular Dwarf Galaxy Sextans A | Mayall Telescope

This glittering image captured by the 4-meter Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, shows the irregular dwarf galaxy Sextans A, which lies around 4.4 million light-years from Earth. This galaxy, which is only a fraction of the size of the Milky Way, has been contorted by successive waves of supernova explosions into the roughly square shape we see from Earth—a cosmic jewelry box filled with bright young stars.

Sextans A is displayed in style in this gorgeous image, which showcases the irregular shape of this dwarf galaxy. Irregular galaxies such as Sextans A do not have the regular appearance of spiral or elliptical galaxies, but instead display a range of weird and wonderful shapes. These galaxies are relatively small, and they are often susceptible to distortions resulting from close encounters or collisions with larger galaxies—sometimes leading to their irregular shapes. Sextans A is particularly small, measuring only about 5,000 light-years across.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)

Data Obtained & Processed by: P. Massey (Lowell Obs.), G. Jacoby, K. Olsen, & C. Smith (AURA/NSF)

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

Release Date: June 30, 2021

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