The Lonely Galaxy
| published June 16, 2015 |
By Thursday Review staff
This dazzling image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The photograph shows a little known galaxy called NGC 6503 perched in a largely empty area of space commonly referred to as the Local Void.
Astronomers find NGC 6503 to be something of an anomaly, since it sits in such stark isolation; most galaxies tend to be clustered or grouped together in large families. But NGC 6503, made famous in the 2007 book Hidden Treasures by Stephen James O’Meara (O’Meara has dubbed this galaxy the “Lost-In-Space Galaxy”), has no nearby neighbors, and sits like an island of activity in a sea of empty space.
NGC 6503 is about one third the size of our own home The Milky Way, and contains a variety of dramatic visual features, including bright red areas filled with hot gases and dark brown areas which consist of mostly dust. According to NASA, NGC 6503 is located about 18 million light-years away from Earth.
Related Thursday Review articles:
Saturn’s Outward Calm; Thursday Review staff; Thursday Review; May 18, 2015.
Rings of Saturn; Thursday Review staff; Thursday Review; March 17, 2015.