NGC 300

High-Res

Object: NGC 300

NGC 300 is a diffuse spiral galaxy spanning 50,000 light years across and lying about 6 million light years from Earth. One of the closest galaxies to our Local Group, it is situated between us and the neighboring Sculptor Group. Massive HII regions abound in its spiral arms with the largest measuring 2000 light years across, it being visible in the above image at an 8 oíclock position from the galaxyís core near the end of a spiral arm.

An interesting binary system was recently discovered in NGC 300 consisting of a 15 solar mass black hole and its 30 solar mass Wolf-Rayet star companion locked in a cosmic dance, the most distant such pairing yet found. The Wolf-Rayet, a furiously burning star in its own right and destined to eventually evolve into a black hole itself, completes an orbit around its dark companion in 32 hours. Vast amounts of material are accreted off the Wolf-Rayet star by the black hole gravitational pull, being heated to very high temperatures which are detectable as X-ray emissions by satellites in Earth orbit. Changes observed today in the core of the Wolf-Rayet star indicate it nearing the end of its life in about a million years. Owing to the fact that this system is approximately 6 million light years away, that change has already occurred but will not be detected on Earth for another 5 million year.