Snuggle up with a Fluffy Galaxy

Teddy bears, warm towels fresh from the dryer, a new puppy…what do all these things have in common? You could say that each is fluffy. But did you know that a galaxy can be considered fluffy too? 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo is a spiral galaxy called NGC 3521. It is called a flocculent spiral galaxy because its spiral arms have a “patchy, woolly look.” According to Webster’s Dictionary, flocculent means something is like wool tufts, or fluffy.

The most recent image of this galaxy was taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, which is located in Chile. Don’t worry if you don’t have access to a very large telescope. If you have a small telescope, you can probably spot this galaxy pretty easily. Just don’t try to give it a hug! It might be fluffy but it won’t make a very good stuffed animal.

{galaxy image via}

A Young Old Galaxy

As a kid, there are probably things you haven’t done yet. They might include drive a car, get a job, or have your own money. Maybe you wish you were older so you could do these things. Most adults will tell you they wish they were young again. Some begin to dread their birthdays’ arrival. Young or old, age is really more a state of mind. If you stay young at heart, it doesn’t matter how many candles are on your cake.

While we might have a certain idea about which ages are considered young and which are considered old, when it comes to galaxies, even the oldest person alive is still just a baby by comparison. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently identified a new galaxy that is quite young, as galaxies go. Its stars formed about 13.5 billion years ago

Galaxies like this one are usually hard to study, but because of a huge cluster of galaxies in front of it, it is actually easy to see. Through an occurrence called gravitational lensing, the young galaxy’s image is being magnified. This causes it to be 11 times brighter than it really is. Scientists are hoping this galaxy will help them learn more about when the first galaxies came to be.

{image 1 credit: NASA, ESA, CRAL, LAM, STScI}