{"id":36266,"date":"2011-06-19T15:46:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/a-galaxy-choked-with-dust-bad-astronomy\/"},"modified":"2011-06-19T15:46:15","modified_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:46:15","slug":"a-galaxy-choked-with-dust-bad-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/a-galaxy-choked-with-dust-bad-astronomy.php","title":{"rendered":"A galaxy choked with dust | Bad Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things I love about nearby galaxies is the incredible amount of detail we can get when we aim our best telescopes at them. For proof, I offer <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/hubblesite.org\/newscenter\/archive\/releases\/2011\/18\/image\/a\/\">this amazingly intricate Hubble portrait of Centaurus A<\/a>:<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/imgsrc.hubblesite.org\/hu\/db\/images\/hs-2011-18-a-xlarge_web.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/aa68b_5839564787_d16b5aacd2_o.jpg\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p>Isn&rsquo;t that breathtaking? [Click to galactinate and see it in magnificent detail.]<\/p><p>Cen A (as those of us in the know call it) is pretty close by as galaxies go, a mere 11 million light years distant. For scale, our own galaxy is 100,000 light years across, and Andromeda, the closest big spiral galaxy, is a hair under 3 million light years away.<\/p><p>Cen A is a bit of a mess. It&rsquo;s an elliptical galaxy, which are usually giant cotton balls in space. Calm, quiet, and sedate, they generally possess very little gas and dust and don&rsquo;t form stars. <\/p><p>Obviously, Cen A hasn&rsquo;t been keeping up with the neighborhood association rulebook.<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2009\/01\/28\/the-roar-of-the-centaur\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/ad94a_3234499700_64ca13122f_m.jpg\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a>In its defense, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2009\/01\/28\/the-roar-of-the-centaur\/\">Cen A apparently suffered a recent collision with another galaxy<\/a>, absorbing the intruder&rsquo;s stars, gas, and dust. As you can see in the image here, the dust cuts across the bigger elliptical galaxy&rsquo;s middle like a Texas cowboy&rsquo;s belt, but ...<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/s37DSv9a5Uq0AxtUy8Zp_C-zWZ0\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/ad94a_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/s37DSv9a5Uq0AxtUy8Zp_C-zWZ0\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/ad94a_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/ad94a_tCj9RLG31Aw\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/ad94a_04R7dlX3O9Y\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things I love about nearby galaxies is the incredible amount of detail we can get when we aim our best telescopes at them. For proof, I offer this amazingly intricate Hubble portrait of Centaurus A:Isn&rsquo;t that breathtaking? &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/a-galaxy-choked-with-dust-bad-astronomy.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}