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By Space Force
The panel discussed the development and realignment of the department’s commands during an era of Great Power Competition.
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By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home Hubble Lights the Way with New… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Lights the Way with New Multiwavelength Galaxy View
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy NGC 1559. ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, W. Yuan, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, A. Riess, K. Takáts, D. de Martin & M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble) The magnificent galaxy featured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 1559. It is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Reticulum, approximately 35 million light-years from Earth. The brilliant light captured in the current image offers a wealth of information.
This picture is composed of a whopping ten different Hubble images, each filtered to collect light from a specific wavelength or range of wavelengths. It spans Hubble’s sensitivity to light, from ultraviolet through visible light and into the near-infrared spectrum. Capturing such a wide range of wavelengths allows astronomers to study information about many different astrophysical processes in the galaxy: one notable example is the red 656-nanometer filter used here. Ionized hydrogen atoms emit light at this particular wavelength, called H-alpha emission. New stars forming in a molecular cloud, made mostly of hydrogen gas, emit copious amounts of ultraviolet light that the cloud absorbs, ionizing the hydrogen gas causing it to glow with H-alpha light. Using Hubble’s filters to detect only H-alpha light provides a reliable way to detect areas of star formation (called H II regions). These regions are visible in this image as bright red and pink patches filling NGC 1559’s spiral arms.
These ten images come from six different Hubble observing programs, spanning from 2009 all the way up to 2024. Teams of astronomers from around the world proposed these programs with a variety of scientific goals, ranging from studying ionized gas and star formation, to following up on a supernova, to tracking variable stars as a contribution to calculating the Hubble constant. The data from all of these observations lives in the Hubble archive, available for anyone to use. This archive is regularly used to generate new science, but also to create spectacular images like this one! This new image of NGC 1559 is a reminder of the incredible opportunities that Hubble provided and continues to provide.
Along with Hubble’s observations, astronomers are using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to continue researching this galaxy. This Webb image from February showcases the galaxy in near- and mid-infrared light.
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 19, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Science Behind the Discoveries
Hubble’s Galaxies
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By Space Force
Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, Defense Logistics Agency Director and Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, Space Force Chief Operations Officer signed an agreement to optimize logistics support Sept 18. at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
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By NASA
ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Koss, A, Barth This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium. Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight. It holds an active galactic nucleus (AGN).
If IC 4709’s core just held stars, it wouldn’t be nearly as bright. Instead, it hosts a gargantuan black hole, 65 million times more massive than our Sun. A disk of gas spirals around and eventually into this black hole, crashing together and heating up as it spins. It reaches such high temperatures that it emits vast quantities of electromagnetic radiation, from infrared to visible to ultraviolet light and X-rays. A lane of dark dust, just visible at the center of the galaxy in the image above, obscures the AGN in IC 4709. The dust lane blocks any visible light emission from the nucleus itself. Hubble’s spectacular resolution, however, gives astronomers a detailed view of the interaction between the quite small AGN and its host galaxy. This is essential to understanding supermassive black holes in galaxies much more distant than IC 4709, where resolving such fine details is not possible.
This image incorporates data from two Hubble surveys of nearby AGNs originally identified by NASA’s Swift telescope. There are plans for Swift to collect new data on these galaxies. Swift houses three multiwavelength telescopes, collecting data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Its X-ray component will allow SWIFT to directly see the X-rays from IC 4709’s AGN breaking through the obscuring dust. ESA’s Euclid telescope — currently surveying the dark universe in optical and infrared light — will also image IC 4709 and other local AGNs. Their data, along with Hubble’s, provides astronomers with complementary views across the electromagnetic spectrum. Such views are key to fully research and better understand black holes and their influence on their host galaxies.
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA’s Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions
This composite image of Arp 107 reveals a wealth of information about the star-formation and how these two galaxies collided hundreds of million years ago (full image below). Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005, however NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays it in much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera).
Image A: Arp 107 (NIRCam and MIRI Image)
This composite image of Arp 107, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), reveals a wealth of information about the star-formation and how these two galaxies collided hundreds of million years ago. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI NIRCam highlights the stars within both galaxies and reveals the connection between them: a transparent, white bridge of stars and gas pulled from both galaxies during their passage. MIRI data, represented in orange-red, shows star-forming regions and dust that is composed of soot-like organic molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. MIRI also provides a snapshot of the bright nucleus of the large spiral, home to a supermassive black hole.
Image B: Arp 107 (MIRI Image)
This image of Arp 107, shown by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), reveals the supermassive black hole that lies in the center of the large spiral galaxy to the right. This black hole, which pulls much of the dust into lanes, also display’s Webb’s characteristic diffraction spikes, caused by the light that it emits interacting with the structure of the telescope itself. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The spiral galaxy is classified as a Seyfert galaxy, one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with galaxies that host quasars. Seyfert galaxies aren’t as luminous and distant as quasars, making them a more convenient way to study similar phenomena in lower energy light, like infrared.
This galaxy pair is similar to the Cartwheel Galaxy, one of the first interacting galaxies that Webb observed. Arp 107 may have turned out very similar in appearance to the Cartwheel, but since the smaller elliptical galaxy likely had an off-center collision instead of a direct hit, the spiral galaxy got away with only its spiral arms being disturbed.
The collision isn’t as bad as it sounds. Although there was star formation occurring before, collisions between galaxies can compress gas, improving the conditions needed for more stars to form. On the other hand, as Webb reveals, collisions also disperse a lot of gas, potentially depriving new stars of the material they need to form.
Webb has captured these galaxies in the process of merging, which will take hundreds of millions of years. As the two galaxies rebuild after the chaos of their collision, Arp 107 may lose its smile, but it will inevitably turn into something just as interesting for future astronomers to study.
Arp 107 is located 465 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor.
Video: Tour the Arp 107 Image
Video tour transcript
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI) The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Matthew Brown – mabrown@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
Video: What happens when galaxies collide?
Interactive: Explore “Interacting Galaxies: Future of the Milky Way”
Other images: Hubble’s view of Arp 107 and Spitzer’s view of Arp 107
Video: Galaxy Collisions: Simulations vs. Observations
Article: More about Galaxy Evolution
Video: Learn more about galactic collisions
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