The galaxy cutting dramatically across the frame of this Hubble Space Telescope image is a slightly warped dwarf galaxy known as UGC 1281. Seen here from an edge-on perspective, this galaxy lies roughly 18 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum (The Triangle). The bright companion to the lower left of UGC 1281 is the small galaxy PGC 6700, officially known as 2MASX J01493473+3234464. Other prominent stars belonging to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and more distant galaxies can be seen scattered throughout the sky. The side-on view we have of UGC 1281 makes it a perfect candidate for studies into how gas is distributed within galactic halos - the roughly spherical regions of diffuse gas extending outwards from a galaxys center. Astronomers have studied this galaxy to see how its gas vertically extends out from its central plane, and found it to be a quite typical dwarf galaxy. jean-baptiste-faure.blogspot/2014/11/dwarf-galaxy-ugc-1281.html
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 21:25:36 +0000