Space & Cosmos

Hubble captures barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures supernova spiral galaxy NGC 1672. Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. van Dijk, A. Filipenko, J. Li and the PHANGS-HST team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA) /Hubble)

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 1672, a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Dorado, 49 million light-years from Earth. This galaxy is a versatile light show that showcases the impressive lights of a variety of celestial objects.

Like other spiral galaxies, bright stars fill its disk, giving the galaxy a beautiful glow. Along its two large arms, bubbles of hydrogen gas glow with a striking red light, fueled by radiation from the young stars encased within them. Near the center of the galaxy, some particularly spectacular stars are embedded within a ring of hot gas.

These newly formed, extremely hot stars emit powerful X-rays. Closer to home, at the center of the galaxy, there is an even brighter source of X-rays: the active galactic nucleus. This powerful source of X-rays makes NGC 1672 a Seyfert galaxy. It forms as a result of heated material swirling within the accretion disk around NGC 1672’s supermassive black hole.

In addition to bright, young stars and X-ray nuclei, the highlight of this image is the most fleeting and ephemeral source of light: supernovae. It only appears in one of the six Hubble images that make up this composite. Supernova SN 2017GAX, a Type I supernova caused by the collapse of its core and subsequent explosion of a giant star, went from invisible to new light in the sky in just a few days.

The supernova has already faded and is visible as a small green dot just below the bend of the spiral arm on the right. Astronomers intentionally created this image of a dying supernova in hopes of finding a companion star that the supernova progenitor may have had (something that would be impossible to find outside of a living supernova). I captured it.

NGC 1672 was also recently imaged by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, showing gas rings and dust structures within its spiral arms.

Citation: Hubble captures barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672 (November 10, 2024), November 10, 2024 https://phys.org/news/2024-11-hubble-captures-barred-spiral-galaxy. Retrieved from html

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