Home Europe Galaxies can take many shapes and be oriented any way relative to us in the sky….

Galaxies can take many shapes and be oriented any way relative to us in the sky….

0
Galaxies can take many shapes and be oriented any way relative to us in the sky….

Galaxies can take many shapes and be oriented any way relative to us in the sky. This can make it hard to figure out their actual morphology, because a galaxy can look very different from different viewpoints. A special case is when we are lucky enough to observe a spiral galaxy directly from its edge. This is NGC 7814, also known as the ‘Little Sombrero’. Its larger namesake, the Sombrero Galaxy, is another stunning example of an edge-on galaxy — in fact, the Little Sombrero is about the same size as its bright namesake at about 60 000 light-years across, but it lies farther away so it appears smaller in the sky. See https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1505a/