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An image released by the European Southern Observatory, that portrays the galaxy NGC 6744, a beautiful spiral visible even with modest telescopes, in the southern constellation of Pavo, has been making the news for a couple of days.
The interesting thing about this galaxy is that it looks very similar to how our own galaxy would appear if viewed from hundreds of thousands of light years above the disk plane.
This is actually not the first time the two galaxies have been compared, the likeness was noted some years ago, but this image taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope (in the blue, yellow-green, red, and H-alpha) is probably that which best shows the regions of star formation in the spiral arms, the dust disk and the small central concentration, with a hint of elongation into a modest bar.
The bar in our galaxy is actually slightly more pronounced, but the main difference between the two galaxies is certainly their diameters, that in the case of 6744 reaches at least 180,000 light years, almost twice that of the Milky Way.
Its great size, in fact, means that it appears in the sky about 2/3 the size of the Moon, despite its distance of around 30 million light years.
To see the galaxy, at least a good pair of binoculars is needed, given its apparent magnitude of slightly fainter than 9. This corresponds to the light of about 60 billion Suns at that distance.
Another reason why this galaxy is similar to our own is the little irregular satellite galaxy to the lower right in the image, similar to our own Magellanic Clouds.
Given that it seems unlikely, at the very least, that even in the distant future Man will ever look at our own galaxy from a distance of hundreds of thousands of light years, we must content ourselves by admiring NGC 6744, hoping that it really is a look-a-like!
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