A nifty shot of Centaurus A, seen through a bar of dust. Image: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA; Acknowledgments: PI: M. Soraisam (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign/NSF’s NOIRLab); Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) and D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
This breathtaking image shows Centaurus A, a galaxy 12 million light-years away. The galaxy is obscured by the bands of dust between it and the Dark Energy Camera, which looks as if someone smeared paint across the sky. In actuality, the dust bands arose from the collision of two galaxies.
