constellations of Pisces and Lynx tagged posts

The galaxy NGC 128 is viewed with its disc in an edge-on orientation in this SDSS false-colour image. A (peanut shell)-shaped bulge can be seen around the thin disc. Its inner peanut shell is 5 times smaller. Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey / B.Ciambur (Swinburne University of Technology) / NASA / ESA

Astronomers at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, have discovered an unusually shaped structure in 2 nearby disc galaxies. The team recently developed new imaging software, making it possible to observe the double “peanut shell shape” formed by the distribution of stars bulging from the centres of these galaxies.

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the researchers realised that two of the galaxies they were studying – NGC128 and NGC2549 – ...