Space Image of the Day Gallery (April 2015)

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ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola

Wednesday, April 29, 2015: Astronomers consider galaxy UGC 5797 an emission line galaxy, meaning that it is currently undergoing active star formation. Its stellar population constantly undergoes refurbishment as massive bright blue stars form. Many spiral galaxies with varying colors and lying at different angles also appear in the image. Large amounts of dust and gas for necessary for star formation fill these spiral galaxies, and as such they often also belong to the class of emission line galaxies. Image released April 27, 2015.

— Tom Chao

Please Share My Umbrella

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum

Thursday, April 30, 2015: Spiral galaxy NGC 4651 lies 62 million light-years from Earth toward the northern constellation of Coma Berenices ("Berenice's Hair"). Galaxies collide and tear each other apart over hundreds of millions of years in a gravitational process called tidal stripping. Here the large spiral galaxy retained its original form while stellar streams and diffuse shell-like structures remain from an accreted dwarf galaxy, parts of which produced the umbrella shape at left. Image released April 2015.

— Tom Chao

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Tom Chao
Tom Chao
Tom Chao has contributed to SPACE.com as a producer and writer since 2000. As a writer and editor, he has worked for the Voyager Company, Time Inc. New Media, HarperCollins and Worth Publishers. He has a bachelor’s degree in Cinema Production from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Tom on Google+.