Word: ngc
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...could exist. The latest surprise came last week, and it forced scientists to drop whatever they were doing and scribble hurried calculations, even on napkins and scraps of envelopes. A report in the Astrophysical Journal claimed that something gigantic is hiding in the core of a distant galaxy called NGC 6240. Perhaps it is a black hole, a concentration of matter so dense that not even light can escape its powerful gravity. If so, it is more massive by far than any black hole ever detected. Or it may be something so bizarre that it does not fit into existing...
...comes the mysterious phenomenon in NGC 6240. It was first spotted in 1986 by astronomers working with a University of Hawaii telescope, but they checked and rechecked their puzzling findings before finally publishing a report last week. At first blush, it looks temptingly revolutionary. The apparent object is invisible, detectable only by its gravitational pull on surrounding gases. Calculation pegs its mass at about 100 billion times the mass of the sun, or about as much as the entire Milky Way. Yet it is squeezed into a mere 3,000 light-years, only about one-thirtieth the diameter...
...NGC 6240 is an abnormal galaxy though. In fact, it is really two galaxies in the process of colliding. The violence of the collision may account for the unexpected forces at work, rather than a black hole or some other strange object. And even if there is a great mass in the galaxy, it could be made of ordinary stars. All it would take to hide these would be a veil of dust...
...informal lunch last week, members of Princeton's prestigious astrophysics department checked their envelopes and napkins and gave this discovery a preliminary thumbs-down. They think a simple explanation for the mystery of NGC 6240 will be found. All would admit, however, that they have been surprised before -- and will be again...
...stands for object No. 82 in the catalogue of nebulae, galaxies and clusters of stars started by the 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier. NGC 253 means object No. 253 in the New General Catalogue...