Hubble takes a long exposure of spiral galaxy
Click for original image.
This morning’s cool image on the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, comes courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.
NGC 7038 lies around 220 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Indus. This image portrays an especially rich and detailed view of a spiral galaxy, and exposes a huge number of distant stars and galaxies around it. That’s because it’s made from a combined 15 hours worth of Hubble time focused on NGC 7038 and collecting light. So much data indicates that this is a valuable target, and indeed, NGC 7038 has been particularly helpful to astronomers measuring distances at vast cosmic scales.
The press release focuses on how astronomers will use this data to refine the techniques they use to estimate distances to astronomical objects. However, a deep field image of this galaxy offers a wealth of other data. Note the reddish streams of dust along and between the spiral arms. This dust, as well as the bright patches in those arms likely signal star-forming regions. And I expect the details in the full resolution image, too large to make available on a webpage, would tell astronomers a lot about what is going on in the galaxy’s central regions.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
This morning’s cool image on the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, comes courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.
NGC 7038 lies around 220 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Indus. This image portrays an especially rich and detailed view of a spiral galaxy, and exposes a huge number of distant stars and galaxies around it. That’s because it’s made from a combined 15 hours worth of Hubble time focused on NGC 7038 and collecting light. So much data indicates that this is a valuable target, and indeed, NGC 7038 has been particularly helpful to astronomers measuring distances at vast cosmic scales.
The press release focuses on how astronomers will use this data to refine the techniques they use to estimate distances to astronomical objects. However, a deep field image of this galaxy offers a wealth of other data. Note the reddish streams of dust along and between the spiral arms. This dust, as well as the bright patches in those arms likely signal star-forming regions. And I expect the details in the full resolution image, too large to make available on a webpage, would tell astronomers a lot about what is going on in the galaxy’s central regions.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The bright spot in the center of the galaxy is just stars that are clustered closer together than those further from the center? If the earth and its sun were closer to the center of the milky way, would we see brighter and more stars in the night sky? Which would make for more violent and frequent cosmic events?
When scientists estimate the number of life supporting planets in a galaxy do they factor in that some locations in a galaxy would be too violent to enable life to evolve over a long period of time?
Hi Steve, what you are referring to is called the Galactic Habitable Zone. There are quite a few unresolved variables involved, so there is no “settled” verdict on the boundaries or strictness of this zone. You’re very right in that the night sky would look quite different from within the central bulge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_habitable_zone
Mr. Zimmerman:
Thank you once again for a fabulous image I might not have seen anywhere else.
What astonishes me with something like this is the sheer number of OTHER galaxies visible as background objects. I live in the Big Wonderful (aka Wyoming) outside a relatively small town in an HOA that doesn’t allow streetlights or yard lights so we usually have a fairly dark night sky. The Milky Way of our own galaxy is always visible on a clear night, and the depth of space has always been impressive. But a picture like this truly illustrates just how vast our universe is.
Blackwing1: Yes, I noticed those other background galaxies as well. I even considered cropping the image to focus in on them, as they certainly do illustrate well in another way the wonder of this image.
Blackwing1: Isaac Asimov wrote a short story on a planet close to a galactic center. Basically is was continually lit by sunlight except one night in a thousand years, which had societal implications. I highly recommend it.
Doh, meant as a response to Steve. Good ready anyway!