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
Key facts
- Discovered by
- J. Palisa
- Discovery site
- Austrian Naval Obs.
- Discovery date
- 8 November 1875
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ s ɪ l ə /
- Named after
- Scylla (Greek mythology)
- Alternative designations
Article
155 Scylla is a main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa at the Austrian Naval Observatory on 8 November 1875, and named after the monster Scylla in Greek mythology. Two weeks after its discovery this asteroid became lost and was not recovered for 95 years. It was finally found by Paul Wild of Berne, Switzerland with the aid of an ephemeris created in 1970 by Conrad M. Bardwell at Cincinnati Observatory.
Photometric observations of this asteroid during 2008 at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico, gave an asymmetrical, bimodal light curve with a period of 7.9597 ± 0.0001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.46 ± 0.03 in magnitude.