In a dazzling jubilee celebration of its 25th anniversary, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a previously unseen image of NGC 6872, a spiral galaxy located in the Peacock (Pavo) constellation. The image was released on July 22, 2024, in a package of 25 photos documenting deep X-ray astronomy.
NGC 6872 is a colossal spiral galaxy, stretching across an astonishing 522,000 light-years, more than five times the size of our Milky Way, said the team on 3 January 2013. that found it was the largest-known galaxy, Brazilian and U.S. astronomers teamed up with those in Chile to identify NGC 6872 through archival data available from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. This was later overtaken by NGC 262, a galaxy that extends an even more remarkable 1.3 million light-years in diameter.
A new image of NGC 6872 testifies to Chandra’s indefatigable spirit and nearly 25,000 observations it has made during over a quarter of a century in space. Twenty-five images disclosed and published in a series from NASA show the observatory fulfilling the dreams of astronomers since its launch, a merger to solve the cosmic puzzles of the universe.
Just as we can gaze upon these wonders in the heavens, the Chandra X-ray Observatory presses forward to explore its frontiers, glimpsing a large and complex tapestry of the Universe.