Does anyone know what exactly this is?
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Etheryte
I'm fairly new here and I find this site absolutely wonderful, so when something small like this arouses a bit of confusion in my head, I'd strive to clear the cloud. Does anyone know what this sphere with a large bulge could possibly be?
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JeanTate
in response to Etheryte's comment.
Welcome to Galaxy Zoo, Etheryte!
This is a galaxy; you can tell it's not a star because it's fuzzy, and doesn't have a sharp edge like stars.
It's smooth - the intensity of the light increases smoothly towards the center - and round. Its yellowish color most likely means the stars, whose light is what we see, are mostly old (hundreds of millions, or billions, of years' old), with very few young (less than ten million years' old) one (more precisely, there are very few massive, bright stars, which are 'blue', and all such stars are young).
These things - smooth profile, round, yellow-ish color - are hallmarks of 'elliptical' galaxies; the other big class of galaxy (spirals) are very different.
Happy hunting! 😃
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Capella05
moderator
in response to Etheryte's comment.
Hi and Welcome to the Zoo @Etheryte
The object directly at the center of the image? That is an Elliptical or 'Smooth' galaxy 😃
Hope this helps and happy hunting!
Capella.
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