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
- Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 23 March 1942
- Named after
- Anne Frank , (Holocaust victim)
- Alternative designations
- 1942 EM · 1978 EK 6 , 1986 TV 14 · 1991 BO 2
Article
Animation of Stardust 's trajectory from 7 February 1999 to 7 April 2011 Stardust · 81P/Wild · Earth · 5535 Annefrank · Tempel 1 5535 Annefrank (/ˌænˈfræŋk/ an-FRANK), provisional designation 1942 EM, is a stony Florian asteroid and suspected contact binary from the inner asteroid belt, approximately 4.5 kilometers in diameter. It was used as a target to practice the flyby technique that the Stardust space probe would later use on the comet Wild 2.
The asteroid was discovered 23 March 1942, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. It was named after Anne Frank, a victim of the Holocaust.