中文翻譯:
在廣闊的星際空間中，有一個叫做Umbrella Galaxy的地方。這個地方有成千上萬閃閃發光的星星，像一把巨大的宇宙雨傘，漂浮在一個巨大的旋渦星系中，這個星系的名字叫做NGC 4651。它的大小差不多和我們的銀河系一樣，而那把星星雨傘則延伸到了約十萬光年遠，遠遠超出了這個銀河的亮光。我們猜想，這把星星雨傘是從一個小小的衛星星系中被撕扯出來的。這個小星系在高高的空中來回移動，最後被大星系的引力吸引，並且還在一次又一次的相遇中被撕裂掉了。現在，這些剩下的星星會在接下來的幾百萬年裡，慢慢地回到大星系中，成為它的一部分。這張美麗的圖片是從沙特阿拉伯拍攝的，Umbrella Galaxy約有五千萬光年遠，在北方的星座Berenice’s Hair裡。
原文:
It’s raining stars. What appears to be a giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy. The main galaxy, spiral galaxy NGC 4651, is about the size of our Milky Way, while its stellar parasol appears to extend some 100 thousand light-years above this galaxy’s bright disk. A small galaxy was likely torn apart by repeated encounters as it swept back and forth on eccentric orbits through NGC 4651. The remaining stars will surely fall back and become part of a combined larger galaxy over the next few million years. The featured deep image was captured in long exposures from Saudi Arabia. The Umbrella Galaxy lies about 50 million light-years distant toward the well-groomed northern constellation of Berenice’s Hair (Coma Berenices). APOD in a Modern Format StellarSnap
來源:NASA每日圖片
