Saturday, November 28, 2009

GALAXIES


One smooth galaxy
This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, showing the spiral galaxy known as NGC 2841, is helping astronomers solve one of the oldest puzzles in astronomy: Why do galaxies look so smooth, with stars sprinkled evenly throughout? An international team of astronomers has discovered that rivers of young stars flow from their hot, dense stellar nurseries, dispersing out to form the large, smooth distribution that we see in spiral galaxies like this one.

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