Hoag's Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy

[–] Mattvision 2 points (+2|-0)

It's depressing thinking about how much stuff humans will never get to see up close. Everything except Andromeda is out of reach.

[–] smallpond 2 points (+2|-0)

You're quite the optimist, so I guess colonizing Mars is just a matter of time?

[–] Mattvision 1 points (+1|-0)

Edited

We're hardly capable of putting much in orbit of our own planet, let alone establishing colonies on Mars. Not now anyway, and likely not for generations to come (if humans are still around).

Now, of course, in a long ass time, we don't know what humans will have come up with. We could achieve interstellar travel with the right technology, if people are willing to sit around on generational ships forever, or if we have a shit-ton of energy and just make peace with time dilation. Who knows?

All we can say for certain is that nothing we do will ever break the light-barrier, so every object outside of our local group is physically impossible to reach, as opposed to just being very inconveniently far away like Andromeda.

[–] smallpond 1 points (+1|-0)

Exterminating ourselves soon is a definite risk. If we don't do that, it's possible that our progress will be reliably limited by our individualistic nature and greed causing repeated civilizational collapses. Otherwise, with enough time, being unable to escape the local group is not certain.

[–] xyzzy [OP] 2 points (+2|-0)

Explanation: Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed, including its nearly perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and recently reprocessed using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap at about seven o'clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.

[–] pembo210 0 points (+0|-0)

beautiful pic, good stuff

Hoag's Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy

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/s/Astronomy