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  • Open star cluster Pismis 24
  • Black hole Cygnus X-1
  • A gas cloud near the Milky Way's central black hole
  • Black hole
  • Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) visible light
  • Southern Pinwheel Galaxy M83 Centre
  • NGC 1300
  • The Andromeda Galaxy
  • M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy
  • M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy 2
  • Arp 273
  • NGC 6744 - A Milky Way Twin
  • Edge-On Galaxy NGC 5866
  • Arp 188 - The Tadpole Galaxy
  • The HCG 59 Group of Galaxies
  • Stephan's Quintet
  • Sizes of Galaxies
  • Sizes of Galaxies II
  • Sizes of Galaxies III
  • Supernova 1994D in NGC 4526
  • Our Local Group
  • Milky Way-Andromeda collision as seen from Earth
  • Milky Way - Andromeda Collision
  • NGC 2683 - The UFO Galaxy
  • Antennae Galaxies colliding

Galaxy NGC 5866 is aligned to the Milky Way in a way that we can see it exactly edge-on. Many beautiful objects that we can observe in the universe are indeed thin discs: the rings of Saturn, protoplanetary discs and even entire galaxies. Just the definition of 'thin' is relative: whilst the rings of Saturn have a thickness of just 20 meters the thickness of a typical spiral galaxy like our Milky Way is about 1000 light years or 9.5 quadrillion km (or if you prefer: 9.5 quintillion meters)!


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Edge-On Galaxy NGC 5866
Published by Published or last modified on 2024-05-22
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