Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured this vivid image of the pithily-named galaxy SDSS J103512.07+461412.2.
SDSS J103512.07+461412.2 is located approximately 23 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major.
The seemingly rambling name is because this galaxy was observed as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
“In the early days of astronomy catalogues, astronomers painstakingly recorded individual objects one by one,” Hubble astronomers said.
“As an example, the Messier catalogue includes only 110 objects, identified by the French astronomer Charles Messier because they were all getting in the way of his comet-hunting efforts.”
“As the Messier catalogue is so limited, it is sufficient to simply refer to those objects as Messier 1 to Messier 110.”
“In contrast, when a survey as massive in scope as the SDSS is involved, and when huge volumes of data need to be processed in an automated manner, the names assigned to objects need to be both longer, and more informative.”
“To that end, every SDSS object has a designation that follows the format of: ‘SDSS J,’ followed by the right ascension (RA), and then the declination (Dec).”
“RA and Dec define the position of an astronomical object in the night sky. RA is analogous to longitude here on Earth, whilst the Dec corresponds to latitude.”
“To be more exact, RA measures the longitudinal distance of an astronomical object from the point where the celestial equator (the mid-point between the north and south celestial poles) intersects with the ecliptic (the plane in which Earth orbits around the Sun).”
“The entire night sky is then carved into 24 slices, known as ‘hours,’ measured eastwards from that starting point (which is designated as zero hour).”
“This means that the RA can be expressed in ‘hours’, ‘minutes’ and ‘seconds’.”
“Dec is the angle north or south of the celestial equator, and is expressed in…
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