This week’s first small-telescope target is open cluster NGC 956 in Andromeda. You’ll find it 5.7° east-northeast of magnitude 2.2 Almach (Gamma [γ] Andromedae). NGC 956 shines at magnitude 8.9 and ...
This near-infrared and visible image shows the galaxy M89 as viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide field and Planetary Camera 2. The 2019 image captures M89’s bright central nucleus and was ...
Four galaxies crowd the center of a collapsing structure 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. Each one is churning out stars at a pace that defies comparison with the present-day universe. Around ...
This huge ball of stars—around 100 billion in total—is an elliptical galaxy located some 55 million light-years away. Known as Messier 89, this galaxy appears to be perfectly spherical; which is ...