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Hubble Captures a Galaxy with Many Lights


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A spiral galaxy with an oval-shaped disk. Two large arms curve out away from the ends of the disk. Bright pink patches and dark reddish threads of dust fill the arms. The bright pink patches indicate where stars are forming. The core is very bright and filled with stars. Some large stars appear in front of the galaxy. Directly under the point where the right arm joins the disk, a fading supernova is visible as a green dot.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. Van Dyk, A. Filippenko, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features NGC 1672, a barred spiral galaxy located 49 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Dorado. This galaxy is a multi-talented light show, showing off an impressive array of different celestial lights. Like any spiral galaxy, shining stars fill its disk, giving the galaxy a beautiful glow. Along its two large arms, bubbles of hydrogen gas shine in a striking red light fueled by radiation from infant stars shrouded within. Near the galaxy’s center are some particularly spectacular stars embedded within a ring of hot gas. These newly formed and extremely hot stars emit powerful X-rays. Closer in, at the galaxy’s very center, sits an even brighter source of X-rays, an active galactic nucleus. This X-ray powerhouse makes NGC 1672 a Seyfert galaxy. It forms as a result of heated matter swirling in the accretion disk around NGC 1672’s supermassive black hole.

See more images of NGC 1672.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. Van Dyk, A. Filippenko, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

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      Last Updated Nov 14, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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      Download this image

      The scientists used data from Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to detect the presence of the halo’s gas by the way it absorbs certain colors of light from background quasars. A spectrograph breaks light into its component wavelengths to reveal clues to the object’s state, temperature, speed, quantity, distance, and composition. With COS, they measured the velocity of the gas around the LMC, which allowed them to determine the size of the halo.
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      Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contacts:
      Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
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      Details
      Last Updated Nov 14, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
      Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Hubble Space Telescope Irregular Galaxies Spiral Galaxies The Milky Way Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
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      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
      claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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      Last Updated Nov 08, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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