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
174 Phaedra (A877 RA)
- Orbit class
- Main-belt Asteroid
- Diameter
- 64.849 km
- Albedo
- 0.169
- Rotation period
- 5.744 h
- Absolute magnitude
- 8.390 H
- Earth MOID
- 1.460 AU
via NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Key facts
- Discovered by
- J. C. Watson
- Discovery date
- 2 September 1877
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ f iː d r ə /
- Alternative designations
- A877 RA
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 138.61 yr (50629 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.2658 AU (488.56 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.4572 AU (367.59 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.8615 AU (428.07 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.84 yr (1768.0 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 330.70 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 12 13.032 / day
- Inclination
- 12.124°
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Phaedra
- Followed by
- 175 Andromache
- Follows
- 173 Ino
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +64.849
- Orbital period
- +1764.982581904922
- Image
- 174Phaedra (Lightcurve Inversion).png
Show 4 more facts
Article
174 Phaedra is a sizable, rocky main belt asteroid that was discovered by Canadian-American astronomer James Craig Watson on September 2, 1877, and named after Phaedra, the tragic lovelorn queen in Greek mythology.
The asteroid is orbiting the Sun with a period of 4.84 years and an eccentricity of 0.14. Lightcurve data obtained from Phaedra indicates a rather irregular or elongated body. It has a cross-section size of ~35 km. Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Shadowbox Observatory in Carmel, Indiana, during 2009 gave a light curve with a period of 4.96 ± 0.01 hours. This is consistent with previous studies in 1977, 1988, and 2008. The asteroid's pole of rotation lies just 5–16° away from the plane of the ecliptic.