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
- C. H. F. Peters
- Discovery date
- 25 September 1879
- Pronunciation
- / p ɒ m ˈ p iː ə /
- Named after
- Pompeii
- Alternative designations
- A879 SA, 1895 EA
- Minor planet category
Article
203 Pompeja is a fairly large main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by C. H. F. Peters on September 25, 1879, in Clinton, New York, and named after Pompeii, the Roman town destroyed in a volcanic eruption in AD 79. This asteroid is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 2.74 AU with an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.06 and a period of 4.53 yr. The orbital plane is tilted at an angle of 3.2° to the plane of the ecliptic.
Based upon photometric observations taken during 2011, it has a synodic rotation period of 24.052 ± 0.001 h, with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.10 ± 0.01 in magnitude. Because the rotation period nearly matches that of the Earth, it required coordinated observations from multiple observatories at widely spaced latitudes to produce a complete light curve. As discovered in 2021, Pompeja alongside the main-belt asteroid 269 Justitia have very red colors due to tholins on its surface, similar to trans-Neptunian objects. These asteroids are therefore thought to have formed in the outer Solar System despite their current orbits within the asteroid belt.