Day: July 22, 2021

NGC 7814: Little Sombrero with Supernova

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Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. NGC 7814 is centered in the pretty field of view that would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. In this telescopic view from July 17, NGC 7814 is hosting a newly discovered supernova, dominant immediately to the left of the galaxy’s core. Cataloged as SN 2021rhu, the stellar explosion has been identified as a Type Ia supernova, useful toward calibrating the distance scale of the universe. via NASA https://ift.tt/3rpvTEq

Wikipedia article of the day for July 22, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Hurricane Emily (1993). Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Hurricane Emily was the strongest storm of the 1993 Atlantic hurricane season, and caused record flooding in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The fifth named storm of the season, Emily became a tropical storm on August 25, after becoming nearly stationary southeast of Bermuda. On August 31, the hurricane reached peak winds of 115 mph (185 km/h) on its approach to North Carolina. Part of the eye passed over Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, but its absolute center remained 23 mi (37 km) offshore. Emily’s strong winds coincided with high tides during a full moon, causing severe flooding along the Pamlico Sound. The villages of Avon and Hatteras were inundated, and in Buxton, the floods left behind water marks as high as 10.54 ft (3.21 m). The storm wrecked 553 homes, leaving a quarter of the Cape Hatteras population homeless. Off the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia, three swimmers drowned.