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. Chacornac
- Discovery date
- 8 February 1856
- Pronunciation
- / l ɛ ˈ t ɪ ʃ i ə /
- Named after
- Laetitia
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Aphelion
- 461.503 million km (3.085 AU)
- Perihelion
- 366.877 million km (2.452 AU)
- Semi major axis
- 414.190 million km (2.769 AU )
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1,682.713 d (4.61 a )
- Mean anomaly
- 58.261°
- Inclination
- 10.383°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 157.168°
- Argument of perihelion
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Laetitia
- Followed by
- 40 Harmonia
- Follows
- 38 Leda
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +179.484
- Orbital period
- +1684.806006371747
- Image
- 39 Laetitia.png
Show 4 more facts
Article
39 Laetitia photographed in December 2020 39 Laetitia is a large main-belt asteroid that was discovered by French astronomer Jean Chacornac on 9 February 1856 and named after Laetitia, a minor Roman goddess of gaiety. The spectrum matches an S-type, indicating a stony (silicate) composition. It is orbiting the Sun with a period of 4.61 years and is spinning on its axis once every 5.1 hours.
Photometric observations of this asteroid gathered between 1968 and 1974 were used to build a light curve that provided shape and rotation information. It has the general shape of an elongated triaxial ellipsoid with ratios between the lengths of the axes equal to 15:9:5. Major surface features are on a scale of 10 km and the surface color does not vary significantly across the surface. In the ecliptic coordinate system, the pole of rotation is estimated to be oriented to the coordinates (λ0, β0) = (121°±10°, +37°±10°).