Picture of the Day · NASA
NGC 3660 and Burçin's Galaxy
2026-05-26
The upper galaxy might be more photogenic, but the lower galaxy is more unusual. The galaxy up top is NGC 3660, a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in that it has several bright blue spiral arms and a central bar of stars, dust, and gas. Captured by chance in the featured deep and colorful image, surprisingly, is SN 2026cff, a supernova found just to the right of the central bar. Farther in the distance is the bottom galaxy, known informally as Burçin’s galaxy, but formally cataloged as LEDA 1000714. The center of this galaxy appears to be an old elliptical galaxy, but it is strangely surrounded by not one but two rings of stars. What created Burçin's galaxy is a mystery and remains a continuing topic of research, but it likely involves the accretion of one or more smaller galaxies.
via NASA APOD
Small body data
142 Polana (A875 BA)
- Orbit class
- Main-belt Asteroid
- Diameter
- 54.812 km
- Albedo
- 0.047
- Rotation period
- 9.764 h
- Absolute magnitude
- 10.530 H
- Earth MOID
- 1.090 AU
via NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Key facts
- Discovered by
- J. Palisa
- Discovery site
- Austrian Naval Obs.
- Discovery date
- 28 January 1875
- Named after
- Pula
- Alternative designations
- A875 BA; 1923 WA;, 1954 BH; 1956 XZ;, 1963 SA
- Minor planet category
- Asteroid belt
- Observation arc
- 117.65 yr (42971 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.7444 AU (410.56 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.0934 AU (313.17 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.4189 AU (361.86 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.76 yr (1374.1 d )
- Average orbital speed
- 19.07 km/s
- Mean anomaly
Article
142 Polana is a very dark asteroid from the asteroid belt. It was discovered by Johann Palisa on January 28, 1875, and named after the city of Pola (now Pula, Croatia), home of the Austrian Naval Observatory where he made the discovery.
It is a major member of the eponymously named Polana family, which is a subgroup of the Nysa family. The asteroid has an estimated diameter of about 55.3 km and a low albedo of 0.045. It is orbiting at a distance of 2.419 times the separation of the Earth from the Sun, with an orbital period of 3.76 years and an eccentricity of 0.14.