Photo of the day: a very special spiral galaxy in the constellation Pegasus
In the Image of the Week heading on the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope website, there is a stunning photograph of the spiral galaxy designated NGC 7678.
The named structure is located in the constellation Pegasus at approximately 164 million light-years from us. The galaxy was discovered back in 1784 by the famous British astronomer of German origin William Herschel.
NGC 7678 is about the size of our own Milky Way: the galaxy is estimated to be approximately 115,000 light-years across. The presented image clearly shows the characteristic structure of objects of this type.
It should be noted that NGC 7678 is included in the so-called Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies – a catalog of peculiar galaxies created by the American astronomer Halton Arp. In this list, the galaxy appears under the designation Arp 28, and its peculiarity is the presence of “one heavy arm.”
By the way, a total of 338 objects are included in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. The same feature as in Arp 28 stands out in six more structures from the named catalog.
