Day: July 18, 2021

The Andromeda Galaxy in Ultraviolet

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What does the Andromeda galaxy look like in ultraviolet light? Young blue stars circling the galactic center dominate. A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go. Spanning about 230,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light in 2003. While its spiral arms stand out in visible light images, Andromeda’s arms look more like rings in ultraviolet. The rings are sites of intense star formation and have been interpreted as evidence that Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The Andromeda galaxy and our own comparable Milky Way galaxy are the most massive members of the Local Group of galaxies and are projected to collide in several billion years — perhaps around the time that our Sun’s atmosphere will expand to engulf the Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/3wL2RQD

Wikipedia article of the day for July 18, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Temporary gentlemen. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: “Temporary gentlemen” is a colloquial term referring to male officers of the British Army who held temporary (or war-duration) commissions, particularly when such men came from outside the traditional officer class. Historically the officers of the British Army were drawn from the gentry and upper middle classes. The First World War required a rapid expansion of the officer corps and more than 200,000 additional officers were recruited, many on temporary commissions. Many of these were drawn from the lower middle and working classes. They came to be referred to as “temporary gentlemen” with the expectation that they would revert to their former social standing after the war. The term was revived in the Second World War, which saw a similar increase in the number of officers holding temporary commissions. The term continued to see use for officers commissioned from those conscripted for National Service, which lasted until 1963.