This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image treats viewers to a wonderfully detailed snapshot of the spiral galaxy NGC 3430 that lies 100 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor. Several other galaxies, located relatively nearby to this one, are just beyond the frame of this image; one is close enough that gravitational interaction is driving … Read more
NGC 3430’s distinct shape may be one reason why astronomer Edwin Hubble used to it to help define his classification of galaxies. Namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope, Edwin Hubble authored a paper in 1926 that outlined the classification of some four hundred galaxies by their appearance — as either spiral, barred spiral, lenticular, elliptical, … Read more
Measuring the distance to truly remote objects like galaxies, quasars, and galaxy clusters is a crucial task in astrophysics, particularly when it comes to studying the early universe, but it’s a difficult one to complete. We can only measure the distances to a few nearby objects like the Sun, planets, and some nearby stars directly. … Read more
The data in this image used a narrow-band filter that allowed H-alpha emission through to the telescope’s detectors. The particular filter, called F657N (F for filter, N for narrow, and 657 for the wavelength in nanometers) or the H-alpha filter, lets through light very close to the 656.46 nanometer H-alpha line’s wavelength. It reveals pinkish … Read more
2 min read Hubble Views the Lights of a Galactic Bar This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals details in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4731. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the broad and sweeping spiral galaxy NGC 4731. It lies in the constellation Virgo and … Read more
NGC 4689 holds an interesting — albeit less royal — place in modern astronomy. The universe is so incredibly vast that at a distance of 54 million light-years NGC 4689 is relatively nearby for a galaxy. This image includes data from two sets of observations, one made in 2019, the other in 2024 , and … Read more
Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth. It’s classified as a Seyfert galaxy, which means that it’s an extremely energetic type of galaxy with an active galactic nucleus (AGN). However, Seyfert galaxies are unique from other sorts of AGNs because the galaxy itself can still be … Read more
The image is from an observation program dedicated to the study of dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster that is searching for the visible light emissions from sources of X-rays in these galaxies. X-rays are often emitted by accretion discs, where material that is drawn into a compact object by gravity crashes together and forms … Read more
The magnificent central bar of NGC 2217 (also known as AM 0619-271) shines bright in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog), in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Roughly 65 million light-years from Earth, this barred spiral galaxy is a similar size to our Milky Way at 100,000 light-years across. Many stars are concentrated in its … Read more
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 3783, a bright barred spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth that also lends its name to the eponymous NGC 3783 galaxy group. Like galaxy clusters, galaxy groups are aggregates of gravitationally bound galaxies. Galaxy groups, however, are less massive and contain fewer members than galaxy clusters … Read more