                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2025 November 27

                            Portrait of NGC 1055
                    Image Credit & Copyright: John Hayes

   Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member
   of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the
   aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island
   universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own
   Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic
   portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way.
   But telltale pinkish star forming regions and young blue star clusters
   are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's
   thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies,
   the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and
   below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced
   with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread
   out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some
   10 billion years ago.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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