View allAll Photos Tagged SPIRALGALAXY
I haven't shot this as often as I had thought. I had some decent RGB data from a trip to Death Valley in 2015, but nothing that showed all the HII regions. I added 9 hydrogen alpha filter subframes -- shot in June 2020 -- to try to boost that. I think I just need more time on this in an upcoming spring.
Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with HyperStar
RGB data: 11 4 min exposures with an Atik 314L+ color one-shot
H-alpha data: 9 4 min exposures, Atik 414-EX with Atik Hα narrowband filter
Preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop
Compilation de 12 images (2 darks) de la galaxie d'Andromède, M31. Programmes: Deepskystacker et Photoshop CS4. D4+Nikkor 200-400 F/4+ TC-14E II+ Déclencheur souple MC-30+ Monture motorisée. Expositions entre 30 et 130s.Total de 1351 secondes.
Stack of 12 images (and 2 darks) of the galaxy Andromeda (M31). Softwares: Deepskystacker and Photoshop CS4
D4+Nikkor 200-400 F/4+ TC-14E II+ Remote trigger MC-30+ Motor mount. Exposures between 30 and 130s.Total of 1351 seconds.
Spiral galaxy revealed! This is a beauty from the 2007 archives. Original release date: April 10, 2007)
A combination of space and ground-based observations, including X-ray data from Chandra, has helped reveal the nature of the so-called anomalous arms in the spiral galaxy NGC 4258 (also known as M106). These arms have been known for decades, but their origin remained mysterious to astronomers.
In visible (shown in gold) and infrared (red) light, two prominent arms emanate from the bright nucleus and spiral outward. These arms are dominated by young, bright stars, which light up the gas within the arms. But in radio (purple) and Chandra's X-ray (blue) images, two additional spiral arms are seen.
By analyzing data from XMM-Newton, Spitzer, and Chandra, scientists have confirmed earlier suspicions that the ghostly arms represent regions of gas that are being violently heated by shock waves. Previously, some astronomers had suggested that the anomalous arms are jets of particles being ejected by a supermassive black hole in nucleus of NGC 4258. But radio observations at the Very Large Array later identified another pair of jets originating in the core.
However, the jets do heat the gas in their line of travel, forming an expanding cocoon. Because the jets lie close to M106's disk, the cocoon generates shock waves and heat the gas in the disk to millions of degrees, causing it to radiate brightly in X-rays and other wavelengths.
Image credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Maryland/A.S. Wilson et al.; Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; VLA: NRAO/AUI/NSF
Read more about this image:
www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc4258/
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
Raw data processed from Liverpool Telescope public archive:
R,G,B:14,15,14x90s bin2
Telescope: Ritchey-Chrétien Cassegrain 2.0m@f/10
Camera: IO:O
The church on the hill overlooking Vik, Iceland with the Great Spiral Galaxy, Andromeda, in the background. Another sandwich, hard to keep from doing with the spiral galaxy.
Captured on a trip to Chile using a friend's 500mm RC telescope and FLI16803 CCD camera. 10 hours of LRGB data.
Last evening's shot of the Andromeda Galaxy. The image is a composite of 15 one-minute exposures at ISO 3200 and setting the f-stop back one setting to f/6.3 from the default 5.6. Seems to have made a difference in the details. Too bad the moon was rising, it was a perfect night for imaging. Temperatures stayed above the dew point during the entire session.
Observation Site: 40.8978786 N,75.8921584 W Equipment: Canon 6D, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, iOptron ZEQ25GT mount. Software: Backyard EOS v3 (camera control), Starry Night Pro v6 (mount control).
NASA image release August 10, 2010
A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices.
The galaxy, known as NGC 4911, contains rich lanes of dust and gas near its center. These are silhouetted against glowing newborn star clusters and iridescent pink clouds of hydrogen, the existence of which indicates ongoing star formation. Hubble has also captured the outer spiral arms of NGC 4911, along with thousands of other galaxies of varying sizes. The high resolution of Hubble's cameras, paired with considerably long exposures, made it possible to observe these faint details.
NGC 4911 and other spirals near the center of the cluster are being transformed by the gravitational tug of their neighbors. In the case of NGC 4911, wispy arcs of the galaxy's outer spiral arms are being pulled and distorted by forces from a companion galaxy (NGC 4911A), to the upper right. The resultant stripped material will eventually be dispersed throughout the core of the Coma Cluster, where it will fuel the intergalactic populations of stars and star clusters.
The Coma Cluster is home to almost 1,000 galaxies, making it one of the densest collections of galaxies in the nearby universe. It continues to transform galaxies at the present epoch, due to the interactions of close-proximity galaxy systems within the dense cluster. Vigorous star formation is triggered in such collisions.
Galaxies in this cluster are so densely packed that they undergo frequent interactions and collisions. When galaxies of nearly equal masses merge, they form elliptical galaxies. Merging is more likely to occur in the center of the cluster where the density of galaxies is higher, giving rise to more elliptical galaxies.
This natural-color Hubble image, which combines data obtained in 2006, 2007, and 2009 from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys, required 28 hours of exposure time.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington, D.C.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: K. Cook (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
To learn more about Hubble go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
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This beautiful barred spiral galaxy is M109. I think this is one of the prettiest galaxies to image but it had its challenges. Located near the bright Big Dipper star Phecda ― the bottom corner of the bowl closest to the Dipper’s “handle” . I had to offset it in the acquisition and later crop the image a little as Phecda caused a lot of streaking in the top right corner. This galaxy look like our own galaxy the Milky Way which is also a barred spiral.
Technical details:
telescope: Ceravolo 300 at f/4.9
Camera: SBIG SAluma 814
Filters: Astrodo LRGB
Total 12.5 hours
Location: Personal observatory, BC, Canada
The Fireworks Galaxy is so-named because of its relatively frequent supernovae events. In the last century alone, NGC 6946 has experienced ten observed supernovae. In comparison, our Milky Way averages just one to two supernova events per century. The galaxy is a face-on, intermediate spiral galaxy - i.e., not quite a barred spiral (has a slight bar).
The galaxy is 25.2 million light-years away and is found between the constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. It is about 90,000 light-years in diameter.
Added diffraction spikes to some of the stars for a "fireworks" effect.
Date of capture: June 2, 2025
Bortle Class 5 backyard, SF Bay Area (East Bay)
Capture: 35x240sec L
Telescope: Celestron C9.25 SCT
Reducer: Starizona SCT Corrector (.63)
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro
ZWO 7-position EFW
Filters: Astronomik L
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM mini
ZWO OAG-L
Mount: iOptron GEM45
Calibrated with Darks, Flats and Dark Flats
ZWO ASIAIR Plus Control and Capture
Processed with DSS, Pleiades PixInsight and Photoshop CC
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope imaged these two overlapping spiral galaxies named SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461, which lie more than a billion light-years from Earth. Despite appearing to collide in this image, the alignment of the two galaxies is likely just by chance – the two are not actually interacting. While these two galaxies might simply be ships that pass in the night, Hubble has captured a dazzling array of other, truly interacting galaxies.
This image is one of many Hubble observations delving into highlights of the Galaxy Zoo project. Originally established in 2007, Galaxy Zoo and its successors are massive citizen science projects that crowdsource galaxy classifications from a pool of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. These volunteers classify galaxies imaged by robotic telescopes and are often the first to ever set eyes on an astronomical object.
Over the course of the original Galaxy Zoo project, volunteers discovered a menagerie of weird and wonderful galaxies such as unusual three-armed spiral galaxies and colliding ring galaxies. The astronomers coordinating the project applied for Hubble time to observe the most unusual inhabitants of the Galaxy Zoo – but true to the project’s crowdsourced roots, the list of targets was chosen by a public vote.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-sees-two-o...
A palm tree under the Milky Way at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. The lights of the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters were glowing mysteriously
behind the trees.
Website: mark-andrew-thomas.pixels.com/
Image Link: mark-andrew-thomas.pixels.com/featured/galactic-highway-m...
The barred spiral galaxy UGC 678 takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The spectacular galaxy lies around 260 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces and is almost face on, allowing its lazily winding spiral arms to stretch across this image. In the foreground, a smaller edge-on galaxy seems to bisect the upper portion of UGC 678.
Barred spiral galaxies have a bar-shaped structure of stars that extends from opposite sides of the galaxy’s central bulge. Bars form in spiral galaxies when the orbits of stars near the galaxy’s heart become unstable and stretched out. As their orbits lengthen, they create a bar. The bar grows as their gravity captures more and more nearby stars. UGC 678’s bar is faint. It is visible as a diagonal group of stars that stretches from the lower left (7 o’clock) to the upper right (1 o’clock) of the galaxy’s core.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick, R.J. Foley
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubble-spotlights...
This finely detailed image shows the heart of NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy that lies about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax. This picture reveals the intricacy of the web of stars and dust at NGC 1097’s center, with the long tendrils of dust seen in a dark red hue. We can see this intricate structure thanks to two instruments on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The idea that two different cameras can take a single image is not very intuitive. However, it makes far more sense after delving into how beautiful astronomical images like this are composed. Our eyes can detect light waves at optical wavelengths between roughly 380 and 750 nanometers, using three types of receptors, each of which is sensitive to just a slice of that range. Our brain interprets these specific wavelengths as colors. By contrast, a telescope camera like the WFC3 or ACS is sensitive to a single, broad range of wavelengths to maximize the amount of light collected. Raw images from telescopes are always in grayscale, only showing the amount of the light captured across all those wavelengths.
Color images from telescopes are created with the help of filters. By sliding a filter over the aperture of an instrument like the WFC3 or ACS, only light from a very specific wavelength range passes through. One such filter used in this image is for green light around 555 nanometers. This yields a grayscale image showing only the amount of light with that wavelength, allowing astronomers to add color when processing the image. This multicolor image of NGC 1097 is composed of images using seven different filters in total.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2002/hubble-sees-the-e...
Just in time for Valentine's Day comes a new image of a ring -- not of jewels -- but of black holes. This composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million light years from Earth, shows X-rays from the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md.
Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left. This collision has produced an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing in abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes.
A fraction of the neutron stars and black holes will have companion stars, and may become bright X-ray sources as they pull in matter from their companions. The nine X-ray sources scattered around the ring in Arp 147 are so bright that they must be black holes, with masses that are likely ten to twenty times that of the Sun.
An X-ray source is also detected in the nucleus of the red galaxy on the left and may be powered by a poorly-fed supermassive black hole. This source is not obvious in the composite image but can easily be seen in the X-ray image. Other objects unrelated to Arp 147 are also visible: a foreground star in the lower left of the image and a background quasar as the pink source above and to the left of the red galaxy.
Infrared observations with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ultraviolet observations with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) have allowed estimates of the rate of star formation in the ring. These estimates, combined with the use of models for the evolution of binary stars have allowed the authors to conclude that the most intense star formation may have ended some 15 million years ago, in Earth's time frame.
These results were published in the October 1st, 2010 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The authors were Saul Rappaport and Alan Levine from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Pooley from Eureka Scientific and Benjamin Steinhorn, also from MIT.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/arp147/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
What lies at the heart of this unusual-looking spiral galaxy? The galaxy NGC 4102, featured in this ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week, is home to what astronomers call an active galactic nucleus. Active galactic nuclei are luminous galactic centres powered by supermassive black holes that contain millions to billion times the mass of our Sun. As these black holes ensnare gas from their surroundings and draw it close with their intense gravitational pull, the gas becomes so hot that it begins to glow and emits light from X-ray to radio wavelengths.
At a distance of just 56 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear), NGC 4102 provides an ideal opportunity to study the ways in which active galactic nuclei interact with their home galaxies. Active galactic nuclei come in many different flavours, from extremely powerful types that consume massive amounts of matter and shoot out jets of charged particles, to calmer types that sip gas from their surroundings and glow more faintly.
NGC 4102 likely falls into the latter category. It’s classified as Compton-thick — a way of saying that its nucleus is obscured by a thick layer of gas — and a LINER, or low-ionisation nuclear emission-line region. LINER galaxies are identified by emission lines from certain weakly ionised elements, and they can be powered by a supermassive black hole that is lazily collecting gas from around it.
A previous image of this galaxy, made from data taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), was released in 2014. This new version presents an upgraded view of the galaxy, using data from the Wide Field Camera 3, which replaced WFPC2 in 2009 and improved upon its resolution and field of view. The new observations come from a programme that will combine visible-light images from Hubble with X-ray information from the Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the relationship between NGC 4102 and its active galactic nucleus.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy. The inner region immediately around the bright centre is golden in colour. A gap separates this region from a bright ring, itself surrounded by a glowing halo. Strands of dark brown dust swirl around the centre and the outer ring, joined in one spot by a curved arm. Bright, blue and pink specks of light dot the ring, showing where stars are concentrated or have recently formed.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Fabbiano; CC BY 4.0
A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this
galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas.
This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258, also known as M106, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way. This galaxy is
famous, however, for something that our galaxy doesn’t have – two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. These
features, or anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it.
The anomalous arms are seen in this new composite image of NGC 4258, where X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue, radio
data from the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array are purple, optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and infrared
data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope are red.
A new study made with Spitzer shows that shock waves, similar to sonic booms from supersonic planes, are heating large amounts of gas –
equivalent to about 10 million suns. What is generating these shock waves? Researchers think that the supermassive black hole at the
center of NGC 4258 is producing powerful jets of high-energy particles. These jets strike the disk of the galaxy and generate shock
waves. These shock waves, in turn, heat the gas – composed mainly of hydrogen molecules – to thousands of degrees.
The Chandra X-ray image reveals huge bubbles of hot gas above and below the plane of the galaxy. These bubbles indicate that much of
the gas that was originally in the disk of the galaxy has been heated and ejected into the outer regions by the jets from the black
hole.
The ejection of gas from the disk by the jets has important implications for the fate of this galaxy. Researchers estimate that all of
the remaining gas will be ejected within the next 300 million years – very soon on cosmic time scales – unless it is somehow
replenished. Because most of the gas in the disk has already been ejected, less gas is available for new stars to form. Indeed, the
researchers used Spitzer data to estimate that stars are forming in the central regions of NGC 4258, at a rate which is about ten times
less than in the Milky Way galaxy.
The European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory was used to confirm the estimate from Spitzer data of the low star formation
rate in the central regions of NGC 4258. Herschel was also used to make an independent estimate of how much gas remains in the center
of the galaxy. After allowing for the large boost in infrared emission caused by the shocks, the researchers found that the gas mass is
ten times smaller than had been previously estimated.
Because NGC 4258 is relatively close to Earth, astronomers can study how this black hole is affecting its galaxy in great detail. The
supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is about ten times larger than the one in the Milky Way and is consuming material at
a faster rate, potentially increasing its impact on the evolution of its host galaxy.
These results were published in the June 20, 2014 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available online. The authors are
Patrick Ogle, Lauranne Lanz and Philip Appleton from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Original caption/more images: www.nasa.gov/chandra/multimedia/galactic-pyrotechnics.html
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the
subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way
suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Sitting on the dock admiring the skies above. What a beautiful sight the milky is.
Bruce County, Ontario, Canada.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 imaged this lonely spiral galaxy called UGC 9391. The galaxy resides 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco near the north celestial pole. Its star-studded spiral arms stand in splendid isolation against a backdrop of distant galaxies, which are only visible as indistinct swirls or smudges thanks to their vast distances from Earth. The image also features some much brighter foreground stars closer to home. These bright nearby stars are ringed with diffraction spikes – prominent spikes caused by light interacting with the inner workings of Hubble’s secondary mirror supports.
This image is from a set of Hubble observations which astronomers used to construct the “Cosmic Distance Ladder” – a set of connected measurements that allow astronomers to determine how far the most distant astronomical objects are. Astronomical distances are only directly measurable for relatively nearby objects – closer than 3,000 light-years or so. For distances beyond this, astronomers rely on a set of measured correlations calibrated against nearby objects. UGC 9391 helped astronomers improve their distance estimates by providing a natural laboratory in which to compare two measuring techniques – supernova explosions and Cepheid variables. Improving the precision of distance measurements helps astronomers quantify how quickly the universe is expanding – one of Hubble’s key science goals.
Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-spies-a-lo...
Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a galaxy that’s hard to categorise. The galaxy in question is NGC 2775, which lies 67 million light-years away in the constellation Cancer (The Crab). NGC 2775 sports a smooth, featureless centre that is devoid of gas, resembling an elliptical galaxy. It also has a dusty ring with patchy star clusters, like a spiral galaxy. Which is it, then: spiral or elliptical — or neither?
Because we can only view NGC 2775 from one angle, it’s difficult to say for sure. Some researchers have classified NGC 2775 as a spiral galaxy because of its feathery ring of stars and dust, while others have classified it as a lenticular galaxy. Lenticular galaxies have features common to both spiral and elliptical galaxies.
It’s not yet known exactly how lenticular galaxies come to be, and they might form in a variety of ways. Lenticular galaxies might be spiral galaxies that have merged with other galaxies, or that have mostly run out of star-forming gas and lost their prominent spiral arms. They also might have started out more similar to elliptical galaxies, then collected gas into a disk around them.
Some evidence suggests that NGC 2775 has merged with other galaxies in the past. Invisible in this Hubble image, NGC 2775 has a tail of hydrogen gas that stretches almost 100 000 light-years around the galaxy. This faint tail could be the remnant of one or more galaxies that wandered too close to NGC 2775 before being stretched apart and absorbed. If NGC 2775 merged with other galaxies in the past, it could explain the galaxy’s strange appearance today.
A Hubble image of NGC 2775 was previously released in 2020. The new version adds observations of a specific wavelength of red light that is emitted by clouds of hydrogen gas surrounding massive young stars.
[Image Description: A galaxy seen face-on, with a slightly elliptical disc that appears to have a hole in the centre like a doughnut. In the hole, the core is a brightly glowing point that shines light out beyond the edge of the disc. Around the hole is an inner ring of dust, and at the galaxy’s edge is a thicker outer ring of dust, with a swirling web of dust strands in between. Blue stars and red nebulae are visible behind the dust.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; CC BY 4.0
The glittering galaxy in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week is NGC 6951, which resides about 70 million light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.
As this Hubble image shows, NGC 6951 is a spiral galaxy with plenty of intriguing structures. Most eye-catching are its spiral arms, which are dotted with brilliant red nebulae, bright blue stars and filamentary dust clouds. The spiral arms loop around the galactic centre, which has a golden glow that comes from a population of older stars. The centre of the galaxy is also distinctly elongated, revealing the presence of a slowly rotating bar of stars.
NGC 6951’s bar may be responsible for another remarkable feature: a white-blue ring that encloses the very heart of the galaxy. This is called a circumnuclear starburst ring — essentially, a circle of enhanced star formation around the nucleus of a galaxy. The bar funnels gas toward the centre of the galaxy, where it collects in a ring about 3800 light-years across. Two dark dust lanes that run parallel to the bar mark the points where gas from the bar enters the ring.
The dense gas of a circumnuclear starburst ring is the perfect environment to churn out an impressive number of stars. Using data from Hubble, astronomers have identified more than 80 potential star clusters within NGC 6951’s ring. Many of the stars formed less than 100 million years ago, but the ring itself is longer-lived, potentially having existed for 1–1.5 billion years.
Astronomers have imaged NGC 6951 with Hubble for a wide variety of reasons, including mapping the dust in nearby galaxies, studying the centres of disc galaxies and keeping tabs on recent supernovae (of which NGC 6951 has hosted five or six).
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy with large, open arms. A bar of yellow light, where old stars are gathered, crosses the middle of the disk. The very centre is a white point surrounded by a small, shining ring of star clusters. Thin lanes of dust swirl around this ring, reaching out to follow the spiral arms; also visible across the arms are red, glowing spots where stars are forming. To the right a star shines large and bright.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, G. Brammer, A. Filippenko, C. Kilpatrick; CC BY 4.0
I recently processed an image of this galaxy trio using data captured by my husband during April, and I became very fond of it. You can view the photo here: flic.kr/p/2kZsHQc
I just knew I'd have to sketch it at some point during my UKMON Fireball Challenge to create an astronomy sketch or astronomy inspired piece of art every day for 2 months. The weather is awful again today, so I decided to draw this using the photo as a reference. I sketched it with a 5B pencil on white paper, using a smudging stick for blending.
Here we focus on a close-up of NGC 3718, the largest member of the Interacting galaxies NGC 3718 and NGC 3729.
This is a strongly distorted (Twisted and warped) spiral galaxy at a distance of 50,000,000 ly.
Magnitude 11.4.
This galaxy has been distorted by an interaction with nearby NGC 3729. Dust lanes cross the front of the galaxy.
The Hickson group 56 of interacting galaxies is also visible 11 o’clock in the deep background at a distance of 400,000,000 ly.
Imaged from Deep Sky West - Rowe New Mexico, using RCOS 14.5" Ritchey–Chrétien telescope f/9. 3340 mm focal length.
L RGB 9: 4:2:3.2 hours. 18 hours total exposure. Reprocessed using latest tools in pixinsight
Transparency and Seeing very good to excellent.
February-March 2017 Processed in Pixinsight, and Lightroom.
SBIG 16803 CCD,AO-X
Featured in this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month is the spiral galaxy NGC 2090, located in the constellation Columba. This combination of data from Webb’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments shows the galaxy’s two winding spiral arms and the swirling gas and dust of its disc in magnificent and unique detail.
NGC 2090 was one of many galaxies studied by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to refine the measurement of the Universe’s expansion rate, or ‘Hubble constant’. This can be done by observing a special type of variable stars named ‘Cepheids’ in relatively nearby galaxies. The Cepheid-based measurement, conducted in 1998, determined NGC 2090 to be 37 million light-years away from Earth. In contrast, according to the newest measurements, NGC 2090 should be slightly farther away, at 40 million light-years. To this day, Hubble is surveying galaxies in visible and ultraviolet light; alongside this Webb image a new Hubble image of NGC 2090 has also been published this week.
Already before that Hubble project in 1998, NGC 2090 had been well studied as a very prominent nearby example of star formation. Described as a ‘flocculent’ spiral, this galaxy has a patchy, dusty disc and arms that are flaky or not visible at all. We can see those patterns well in Hubble's visible-light images. However, Webb’s NIRCam near-infrared data reveal the spiral arms with remarkable clarity. NIRCam also picks up bright light from stars, displayed in blue and most visible in the galaxy's centre. At the same time, Webb’s MIRI captures the mid-infrared light from the carbon-based compounds along the many strands of gas and dust. This MIRI data is pictured as red in the Webb image.
These data on NGC 2090 were collected as part of an observing programme (#3707) capturing many similar nearby massive, star-forming galaxies. These galaxies are located at just the right distance and have a good level of activity, so that Webb’s instruments can capture a detailed picture of their star-forming activity. This gives us a unique insight into the tightly-bound clusters of young stars and clouds of gas within the galaxies in which stars are born. The rich collection of detailed images like this one will be of value to astronomers studying star formation for years to come.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy with a wide, oval-shaped disc. It has a shining spot at the centre from which two curving, pale red spiral arms emerge, wrapping once each around the galaxy. They’re surrounded by a whirl of bright threads and patches of dust, with spots of star formation scattered throughout. The glow of the disc fades smoothly into the background where some patches of dust can be seen, as well as foreground stars.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy; CC BY 4.0
The spiral galaxy NGC 3596 is on display in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week, which incorporates six different wavelengths of light. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. The galaxy was discovered in 1784 by astronomer William Herschel, the namesake of ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory.
NGC 3596 appears almost perfectly face-on when viewed from Earth, showcasing the galaxy’s neatly wound spiral arms. The bright arms mark where the galaxy’s stars, gas and dust are concentrated. Star formation is also most active in a galaxy’s spiral arms, as shown by the brilliant pink star-forming regions and young blue stars tracing NGC 3596’s arms in this image.
What causes these spiral arms to form? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, partly because of the remarkable diversity of spiral galaxies. Some have clear spiral arms, while others have patchy, feathery arms. Some have prominent bars across their centres, while others have compact, circular nuclei. Some have close neighbours, while others are isolated.
Early ideas of how spiral arms formed were stumped by what’s called the ‘winding problem’. If a galaxy’s spiral arms are coherent structures, the arms would be wound tighter and tighter as the galaxy spins, until the arms are no longer visible. Now, researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas rather than a physical structure. As stars, gas and dust orbit within a galaxy’s disc, they pass in and out of the spiral arms. Much like cars moving through a traffic jam, these materials slow down and bunch up as they enter a spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy viewed face-on, with a slightly oval-shaped disc. The centre is a bright white spot surrounded by a golden glow. Two spiral arms extend out from the centre, wrapping around the galaxy and broadening out to form the thick outer edge of the disc. Thin reddish strands of dust and bright pink spots follow the arms through the disc. Faint strands of stars extend from the arms’ tips, out beyond the disc.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
A star-studded spiral galaxy shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. This galaxy is called NGC 4571, and it’s situated about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. NGC 4571 dominates the scene with its feathery spiral structure and sparkling star clusters.
The galaxy’s dusty spiral arms are dotted with brilliant pink nebulae that contain massive young stars. Though the star-forming clouds that are seen here are heated to roughly 10 000 degrees by searing ultraviolet light from the young stars at their cores, stars get their start in much chillier environments. The sites of star birth are giant molecular clouds tens to hundreds of light-years across, in which the temperature hovers just a few tens of degrees above absolute zero.
The dramatic transformation from freezing gas cloud to fiery young star happens thanks to the immense pull of gravity, which collects gas into dense clumps within a star-forming cloud. As these clumps yield to gravity’s pull and collapse inward, they eventually become hot and dense enough to spark nuclear fusion in their centres and begin to shine. The glowing clouds in this image surround particularly massive stars that are hot enough to ionise the gas of their birthplaces.
A Hubble image of NGC 4571 was previously released in 2022, using data from an observing programme the combines data from leading observatories like Hubble, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to study star formation in nearby spiral galaxies like NGC 4571. The new image released today adds data from a programme that seeks to understand how dust affects our observations of young stars deeply embedded within their natal clouds.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy, seen face-on, fills the view. Swirling, patchy and broken spiral arms surround a softly glowing centre. The arms are filled with blue, speckled patches showing star clusters, shining pink and red dots where young stars are lighting up gas clouds, and a web of thin, dark red dust lanes. The glow of the galaxy’s arms extends out into the dark background. Individual tiny stars appear throughout.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; CC BY 4.0
NGC 3718 is a highly disturbed spiral galaxy with an unusual, warped shape that looks a bit like a plump letter “s” from Earth, with a thin thread of dark dust snaking through it. Hubble’s view of this portion of NGC 3718 shows the sinuous, twisting dust lane in detail as it sweeps by the core of the galaxy and curves into the surrounding gas. Both the galaxy’s gas and dust lane are similarly distorted into this unique configuration.
The nucleus of the galaxy is extremely hard to detect in either visible or ultraviolet light because the prominent dust lane blocks much of those wavelengths, but it can be seen when viewing infrared light, which passes through dusty regions. NGC 3718, also called Arp 214, is thought to get its unusual shape from gravitational interaction with nearby galaxy NGC 3729, another spiral galaxy located approximately 150,000 light-years away. Among the features likely caused by this interaction are the line of reddish star formation that extends toward the 9 o’clock position, and the dark tendril of dust that reaches toward the 7 o’clock position.
Hubble took this image in infrared and visible light as part of a study of the central regions of disk-shaped galaxies with prominent bulges of stars in multiple environments. The study was meant to help clarify the relationship between the mass of supermassive black holes and the properties of galactic bulges; and to investigate star formation on a galactic scale, from the region around the nucleus to a galaxy’s disk.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and L. Ho (Peking University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-views-a-tw...
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Though interesting to look at, NGC 1511 is one galaxy you might not want for a neighbour. Seen in this ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week, NGC 1511 is a peculiar spiral galaxy located roughly 50 million light-years away in the constellation Hydrus.
Like many galaxies, NGC 1511 doesn’t travel through space alone. Instead, it does so with a pair of small galactic companions called NGC 1511A and NGC 1511B, both of which lie outside the frame of this Hubble image. NGC 1511B is situated closest to NGC 1511, and the two galaxies have apparently clashed in the past; a narrow strand of hydrogen gas connects them, and NGC 1511B has been stretched and distorted by the encounter. Researchers have even found evidence that NGC 1511 once had another small companion galaxy that it has disrupted entirely!
These disruptions have an impact on NGC 1511, too. The galaxy is experiencing a burst of star formation, and its disc features strange loops and plumes that could point to past interactions with its neighbouring galaxies. Researchers will use Hubble’s keen observations of NGC 1511 to study star clusters embedded within its dusty gas, seeking to understand how matter is cycled from interstellar clouds to stars and back to clouds once again.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy, tilted away so that it is seen mostly from the edge. The disc of the galaxy glows blue from its centre, due to younger stars in the spiral arms. There are large and small patches of gas, glowing in red and pink colours, where new stars are forming. Webs of dark dust are spread over the disc. The glow of the disc fades into a dark background, with a couple of stars.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope looks at two spiral galaxies, collectively known as Arp 303. The pair, individually called IC 563 (bottom right) and IC 564 (top left), are 275 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sextans.
The image holds data from two separate Hubble observations of Arp 303. The first used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to study the pair’s clumpy star-forming regions in infrared light. Galaxies like IC 563 and IC 564 are very bright at infrared wavelengths and host many bright star-forming regions.
The second used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to take quick looks at bright, interesting galaxies across the sky. The observations filled gaps in Hubble’s archive and looked for promising candidates that Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, and other telescopes could study further.
The colors red, orange, and green represent infrared wavelengths taken with WFC3, and the color blue represents ACS visible light data.
Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Larson (STScI), and J. Dalcanton (University of Washington); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
Visit Hubble's Galaxies: www.nasa.gov/content/discoveries-hubbles-galaxies
The luminous heart of the galaxy M61 dominates this image, framed by its winding spiral arms threaded with dark tendrils of dust. As well as the usual bright bands of stars, the spiral arms of M61 are studded with ruby-red patches of light. Tell-tale signs of recent star formation, these glowing regions lead to M61’s classification as a starburst galaxy.
Though the gleaming spiral of this galaxy makes for a spectacular sight, one of the most interesting features of M61 lurks unseen at the center of this image. The heart of the galaxy shows widespread pockets of star formation, and hosts a supermassive black hole more than five million times as massive as the Sun.
M61 appears almost face-on, making it a popular subject for astronomical images, even though the galaxy lies more than 52 million light-years from Earth. This particular astronomical image incorporates data from not only Hubble, but also the FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph 2 camera at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, together revealing M61 in unprecedented detail. This striking image is one of many examples of telescope teamwork – astronomers frequently combine data from ground-based and space-based telescopes to learn more about the universe.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-takes-a-sp...
This jewel-bright image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 2903. Hubble captured this image using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), installed in 2002 and 2009 respectively. Interestingly, Hubble observed this particular galaxy in 2001, before the ACS and the WFC3 were installed. The 2021 image boasts higher resolution, which means NGC 2903 is more finely detailed than in the 2001 image. The ACS and WFC3 collectively cover a wide range of ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths, so the 2021 image also has improved wavelength coverage to that of its 20-year-old predecessor. Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) took the 2001 image. The WFPC2 was Hubble’s workhorse instrument from 1993 until 2009 when the WFC3 replaced it.
One of Hubble’s most remarkable features is its incredible longevity, made possible by its successful servicing missions that corrected imperfections in the observatory’s mirror, updated its technical systems, and removed old instruments and installed new ones. The juxtaposition of the 2001 and 2021 images of NGC 2903 – both remarkable images for their time – highlights the value of a stable, accessible platform in space that can reliably collect data, not only year after year, but decade after decade.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and L. Ho, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-gets-galac...
NGC 2336 is the quintessential galaxy — big, beautiful, and blue — and it is captured here by the Hubble Space Telescope. The barred spiral galaxy stretches an immense 200,000 light-years across and is located approximately 100 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis (the Giraffe).
Its spiral arms glitter with young stars, visible in their bright blue light. In contrast, the redder central part of the galaxy is dominated by older stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, V. Antoniou
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
For more information, visit: esahubble.org/images/potw2109a/
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the glorious spiral galaxy NGC 5643, which is located roughly 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf. NGC 5643 is a grand design spiral, which refers to the galaxy’s symmetrical form with two large, winding spiral arms that are clearly visible. Bright-blue stars define the galaxy’s spiral arms, along with lacy reddish-brown dust clouds and pink star-forming regions.
As fascinating as the galaxy appears at visible wavelengths, some of NGC 5643’s most interesting features are invisible to the human eye. Ultraviolet and X-ray images and spectra of NGC 5643 show that the galaxy hosts an active galactic nucleus: an especially bright galactic core powered by a feasting supermassive black hole. When a supermassive black hole ensnares gas from its surroundings, the gas collects in a disk that heats up to hundreds of thousands of degrees. The superheated gas shines brightly across the electromagnetic spectrum, but especially at X-ray wavelengths.
NGC 5643’s active galactic nucleus isn’t the brightest source of X-rays in the galaxy, though. Researchers using ESA’s XMM-Newton discovered an even brighter X-ray-emitting object, called NGC 5643 X-1, on the galaxy’s outskirts. What could be a more powerful source of X-rays than a supermassive black hole? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be a much smaller black hole! While the exact identity of NGC 5643 X-1 is unknown, evidence points to a black hole that is about 30 times more massive than the Sun. Locked in an orbital dance with a companion star, the black hole ensnares gas from its stellar companion, creating a superheated disk that outshines the NGC 5643’s galactic core.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker
#NASAMarshall #NASA #NASAHubble #Hubble #NASAGoddard #galaxy
Here we see NGC 4423, a galaxy that lies about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. In this image NGC 4423 appears to have quite an irregular, tubular form, so it might be surprising to find out that it is in fact a spiral galaxy. Knowing this, we can make out the denser central bulge of the galaxy, and the less crowded surrounding disc (the part that comprises the spiral arms).
If NGC 4423 were viewed face-on it would resemble the shape that we most associate with spiral galaxies: the spectacular curving arms sweeping out from a bright centre, interspersed with dimmer, darker, less populated regions. But when observing the skies we are constrained by the relative alignments between Earth and the objects that we are observing: we cannot simply reposition Earth so that we can get a better face-on view of NGC 4423!
Of course, celestial objects do not remain sedentary in space, but often move at extremely rapid velocities relative to one another. This might suggest that, should a galaxy be moving in a fortuitous direction relative to Earth, we might be able to view it from a substantially different perspective once it has moved far enough. This is theoretically possible, but the reality is that the distances in space are simply far too big, and human lifetimes far too short, for a noticeable difference in relative alignment to occur. In other words, this is more-or-less the view of NGC 4423 that we will always have!
[Image Description: A broad spiral galaxy is seen edge-on, so that its spiral arms can’t be seen. Visible dust and stars trace the disc of the galaxy, surrounded by a glowing halo above and below. The colour of the galaxy changes smoothly between the outer disc at the ends and the bulge in the centre. A few bright stars surround the galaxy on a dark background.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun; CC BY 4.0
Denise Milan & Ary Perez, 2000, near Adler Planetarium, Northerly Island Park, Museum Campus, Near South Side, Chicago, Illinois, USA, sculpture
This new Hubble Space Telescope image of IC 4271, also known as Arp 40, is a curious pair of spiral galaxies some 800 million light-years away. The smaller galaxy is superimposed on the larger one, which is a type of active galaxy called a Seyfert galaxy.
Seyfert galaxies are named for astronomer Carl K. Seyfert who, in 1943, published a paper about spiral galaxies with very bright emission lines. Today we know that about 10% of all galaxies may be Seyfert galaxies. They belong to the class of “active galaxies” – galaxies that have supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material, which releases vast amounts of radiation. The active cores of Seyfert galaxies are at their brightest when observed in light outside the visible spectrum. The larger galaxy in this pair is a Type II Seyfert galaxy, which means it is a very bright source of infrared and visible light.
The image uses data collected during Hubble observations designed to study the role of dust in shaping the energy distributions of low mass disk galaxies. The Hubble observations looked at six pairs of galaxies where one was in front of the other. The broad range of light that Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is sensitive to, along with its resolution, allowed the researchers to map the foreground galaxy’s dust disk in fine detail across ultra-violet, visible, and infrared light. Because IC 4271 is a Type II Seyfert Galaxy, visible and infrared wavelengths of light dominate the image. The colors in this image are primarily visible light, while the color violet represents ultraviolet light and red represents near infrared light.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and B. Holwerda (University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc.); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
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In this image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures a side-on view of NGC 3568, a barred spiral galaxy roughly 57 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Centaurus. In 2014 the light from a supernova explosion in NGC 3568 reached Earth – a sudden flare of light caused by the titanic explosion accompanying the death of a massive star. While most astronomical discoveries are the work of teams of professional astronomers, this supernova was discovered by amateur astronomers who are part of the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search in New Zealand. Dedicated amateur astronomers often make intriguing discoveries – particularly of fleeting astronomical phenomena such as supernovae and comets.
This Hubble observation comes from a wealth of data gathered to pave the way for future science with the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. By combining ground-based observations with data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3, astronomers have built a treasure trove of data on the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. One of Webb’s key science goals is to explore the life cycle of stars – particularly how and where stars are born. Since Webb observes at infrared wavelengths, it will be able to peer through the clouds of gas and dust in stellar nurseries and observe the fledgling stars within. Webb’s superb sensitivity will even allow astronomers to directly investigate faint protostellar cores – the earliest stages of star birth.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun
Text Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-views-a-ga...
The lazily winding spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 5921 snake across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy lies approximately 80 million light-years from Earth, and much like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, contains a prominent bar – a central linear band of stars. Roughly half of all spiral galaxies may contain bars. These bars affect their parent galaxies by fueling star formation and influencing the motion of stars and interstellar gas.
Given NGC 5921’s serpentine spiral arms, it seems fitting that the galaxy resides in the constellation Serpens in the northern celestial hemisphere. Serpens is the only one of the 88 modern constellations with two unconnected regions – Serpens Caput (Serpent’s Head) and Serpens Cauda (Serpent’s Tail). Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, separates these two regions.
The scientific study behind this image also came in two parts – observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and observations from the ground-based Gemini Observatory. The two telescopes helped astronomers better understand the relationship between galaxies like NGC 5921 and the supermassive black holes they contain. Hubble’s contribution determined the masses of stars in the galaxies. Hubble also took measurements that helped calibrate the observations from Gemini. Together, Hubble and Gemini provided astronomers with a census of nearby supermassive black holes in a diverse variety of galaxies.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Walsh; Acknowledgment: R. Colombari
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goodard/2002/hubble-spies-a-se...
NGC 4666 takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This majestic spiral galaxy lies about 80 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo and is undergoing a particularly intense episode of star formation. Astronomers refer to galaxies that rapidly form stars as starburst galaxies. NGC 4666’s starburst is likely due to gravitational interactions with its unruly neighbors – including the nearby galaxy NGC 4668 and a dwarf galaxy, which is a small galaxy made up of a few billion stars.
NGC 4666’s burst of star formation is driving an unusual form of extreme galactic weather known as a superwind – a gigantic transfer of gas from the bright central heart of the galaxy out into space. This superwind is the result of driving winds from short-lived massive stars formed during NGC 4666’s starburst as well as spectacularly energetic supernova explosions. Two supernovae occurred in NGC 4666 within the last decade – one in 2014 and the other in 2019. The star that led to the 2019 supernova was 19 times as massive as our Sun!
Though the torrent of superheated gas emanating from NGC 4666 is truly vast in scale – extending for tens of thousands of light-years – it is invisible in this image. The superwind’s extremely high temperature makes it stand out as a luminous plume in X-ray or radio observations, but it doesn’t show up at the visible wavelengths imaged by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Graur; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-uncovers-a...
This image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 7678 – a galaxy with one particularly prominent arm, located approximately 164 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (the Winged Horse). With a diameter of around 115,000 light-years, this bright spiral galaxy is a similar size to our own galaxy (the Milky Way) and was discovered in 1784 by the German-British astronomer William Herschel.
The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies is a catalog which was produced in 1966 by the American astronomer Halton Arp. NGC 7678 is among the 338 galaxies presented in this catalog, which organizes peculiar galaxies according to their unusual features. Cataloged here as Arp 28, this galaxy is listed together with six others in the group “spiral galaxies with one heavy arm.”
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-spots-a-ga...
Here is the galaxy NGC 2403, a spiral galaxy, in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is about 8 million light-years away. This was photographed on January 5, 2016. Tech specs: Canon 6D, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, iOptron ZEQ25 equatorial mount, f/5.6, ISO 3200, 15 x 60 seconds, 15 x 30 seconds, 15 x 15 seconds, 26-minutes total time.
M109 is a text book barred galaxy located close to the bright star Phecda in Ursa Major. It is a pretty sight with 4 other galaxies (but more distant) on the left of M109 (blue hazy spots).
C11-HD, STL 11km on a G11 mount
Total exposure: 9h10' in 55 subs of 600s; 28 in L (Bin1x1), 14 in R, 14 in G and 13 in B all binned 2x2. Urban site and a rather misty sky but no clouds at last.
This image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 4826 — a spiral galaxy located 17 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair). This galaxy is often referred to as the “Black Eye” or “Evil Eye” galaxy because of the dark band of dust that sweeps across one side of its bright nucleus.
NGC 4826 is known by astronomers for its strange internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this galaxy and the gas in its inner regions are rotating in opposite directions, which might be related to a recent merger. New stars are forming in the region where the counter-rotating gases collide.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
For more information, visit: esahubble.org/images/potw2108a/
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy Mrk (Markarian) 1337, which is roughly 120 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 snapped Mrk 1337 at a wide range of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths, producing this richly detailed image. Mrk 1337 is a weakly barred spiral galaxy, which as the name suggests means that the spiral arms radiate from a central bar of gas and stars. Bars occur in roughly half of spiral galaxies, including our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
These observations are part of a campaign to improve our knowledge of how fast the universe is expanding. They were proposed by Adam Riess, who – along with Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt – was awarded a 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-gazes-at-a...
This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) shows the unique galaxy pair called NGC 3314. Through an extraordinary chance alignment, a face-on spiral galaxy lies precisely in front of another larger spiral. This line-up provides us with the rare chance to visualize dark material within the front galaxy, seen only because it is silhouetted against the object behind it. Dust lying in the spiral arms of the foreground galaxy stands out where it absorbs light from the more distant galaxy. This silhouetting shows us where the interstellar dust clouds are located, and how much light they absorb. The outer spiral arms of the front galaxy appear to change from bright to dark, as they are projected first against deep space, and then against the bright background of the other galaxy. NGC 3314 lies about 140 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra. The bright blue stars forming a pinwheel shape near the center of the front galaxy have formed recently from interstellar gas and dust. A small, red patch near the center of the image is the bright nucleus of the background galaxy, NGC 3314b. It is reddened for the same reason the setting sun looks red. When light passes through a volume containing small particles (molecules in the Earth's atmosphere or interstellar dust particles in galaxies), its color becomes redder. The Hubble Heritage color image of NGC 3314 was constructed from archival images taken with WFPC2 in April 1999 by Drs. William Keel and Ray White III (University of Alabama) in blue and infrared light, combined with new images obtained by the Heritage team in March 2000 using blue, green and red filters.
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Image Number: PR00-14
Release Date: May 11, 2000
The subject of this week’s circular Hubble Picture of the Week is situated in the Perseus Cluster, also known as Abell 426, 320 million light-years from Earth. It’s a barred spiral galaxy known as MCG+07-07-072, seen here among a number of photobombing stars that are much closer to Earth than it is.
MCG+07-07-072 has quite an unusual shape, for a spiral galaxy, with thin arms emerging from the ends of its barred core to draw a near-circle around its disc. It is classified, using a common extension of the basic Hubble scheme, as an SBc(r) galaxy: the c denotes that its two spiral arms are loosely wound, each only performing a half-turn around the galaxy, and the (r) is for the ring-like structure they create. Rings in galaxies come in quite a few forms, from merely uncommon, to rare and astrophysically important!
Lenticular galaxies are a type that sit between elliptical and spiral galaxies. They feature a large disc, unlike an elliptical galaxy, but lack any spiral arms. Lenticular means lens-shaped, and these galaxies often feature ring-like shapes in their discs. Meanwhile, the classification of “ring galaxy” is reserved for peculiar galaxies with a round ring of gas and star formation, much like spiral arms look, but completely disconnected from the galactic nucleus - or even without any visible nucleus! They’re thought to be formed in galactic collisions. Finally, there are the famous gravitational lenses, where the ring is in fact a distorted image of a distant, background galaxy, formed by the ‘lens’ galaxy bending light around it. Ring-shaped images, called Einstein rings, only form when the lensing and imaged galaxies are perfectly aligned.
[Image Description: A galaxy. It is almost circular. It has a glowing bar stretching across its core; from the ends of the bar, thin spiral arms wrap around the galaxy to form a closed disc. The arms are fuzzy from the dust and stars they contain. The galaxy is on a black, mostly-empty background. A few foreground stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes can be seen, as well as some distant galaxies in the background.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, I. Chilingarian; CC BY 4.0
The spiral galaxy M91 fills the frame of this Wide Field Camera 3 observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. M91 lies approximately 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices and – as is evident in this image – is a barred spiral galaxy. While M91’s prominent bar makes for a spectacular galactic portrait, it also hides an astronomical monstrosity. Like our own galaxy, M91 contains a supermassive black hole at its center. A 2009 study using archival Hubble data found that this central black hole weighs somewhere between 9.6 and 38 million times as much as the Sun.
While archival Hubble data allowed astronomers to weigh M91’s central black hole, more recent observations have had other scientific aims. This observation is part of an effort to build a treasure trove of astronomical data exploring the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. To do this, astronomers used Hubble to obtain ultraviolet and visible observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths by the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
Observing time with Hubble is a highly valued, and much sought-after, resource for astronomers. To obtain data from the telescope, astronomers first have to write a proposal detailing what they want to observe and highlighting the scientific importance of their observations. These proposals are then anonymized and judged on their scientific merit by a variety of astronomical experts. This process is incredibly competitive: Following Hubble’s latest call for proposals, only around 13% of the proposals were awarded observing time.
Are you interested in finding out what Hubble is observing right now? You can follow the space telescope’s observations in real time here.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team