Spiral galaxy NGC 1672
This is the spiral galaxy "NGC 1672" about 50 million light-years away in the direction of the southern sky's "Doradus". The image clearly captures the bar-like structure penetrating the central part and the spiral arms surrounding it. At a nearly straight-on angle to Earth, NGC 1672's bright center suggests a staring eye. According to the National Science Foundation's National Laboratory for Optical and Infrared Astronomy (NSF/NOIRLab), which released the image, NGC 1672 is known to have an active galactic nucleus (AGN) that emits strong electromagnetic waves from a narrow region. NGC 1672 itself is classified as Seyfert type 2, a type of active galaxy. The galactic nucleus of NGC 1672 is said to be surrounded by a ring of hot gas filled with bright young stars. Many of the countless spots of light around NGC 1672 are the brilliance of distant galaxies. Even galaxies that appear so small that their shapes cannot be discerned contain tens of billions and even hundreds of billions of stars.
Enlarged part of the opening image
This image was created from observational data from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) installed on the Blanco 4m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, from NOIRLab on February 2, 2022. Published by date. The Dark Energy Camera, which was developed mainly for the purpose of studying dark energy, is a gigantic digital camera (approximately 520 megapixels) that can capture an area (3 square degrees) about 14 times the size of the full moon at once. Observations are being carried out from 2013 to 2019 with a device like this. Source・Image Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF's NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab), M Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF's NOIRLab))・NOIRLab - A Galactic Vortex
Takehiro Matsumura