Photo # 2 (May 2009)

NGC 7331: A Galaxy So Inclined

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle
and knows...
                               - Robert Frost

Credit: M. Regan (STScI) et al., JPL, Caltech, NASA

If our own Milky Way galaxy were 50 million light-years away with its disk inclined slightly to our line of sight, it would look a lot like large spiral galaxy NGC 7331. In fact, seen here in a false-color infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, NGC 7331 is interesting in part because it is thought to be so similar to the Milky Way. Light from older, cooler stars, shown in blue, dominates the central bulge of NGC 7331, while Spitzer data also indicates the presence of a black hole within this galaxy's central regions - about the same size as the black hole at our own galactic core. Shown in red and brown, radiation from complex molecules associated with dust traces NGC 7331's star forming spiral arms. The arms span around 100,000 light-years, about the size of the Milky Way. Curiously, a further star forming ring is visible in yellowish hues, 20,000 light-years or so from the center of NGC 7331, but it is not known if such a structure exists within our own galaxy.

Is there anywhere in our universe another planet like ours? A speck of substance with water and beautiful, incredibly varied life forms all over it? A place where intelligent life has evolved?
    A place where some members of one species madly pursued selfish self-interests to the point of ignoring all the rest of the life forms on the planet? To the point of suicide of that species? To the point of genocide of all other species?
    But this doesn't have to happen on our planet!
    See: David Korten. The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, New York: Stylus 2006 for an outstanding discussion on how humanity has gotten itself in trouble and how we can work our way out into a healing for ourselves and our planet.
                                          - Dan Benor