Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Hubble used two instruments to image this beautiful galaxy

By

This week’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope is striking: The beautiful galaxy NCG 1097, as captured using two of Hubble’s instruments working in tandem. This barred spiral galaxy is located 48 million light-years away, in the constellation of Fornax, and has a twisted shape caused by gravitational interactions with a nearby companion galaxy called NCG 1097A.

This particular galaxy is known for being the site of no less than three supernovas over the past two decades, with stars exploding in epic events when they reached the ends of their lives. The supernovas were called SN 1992bd, SN 1999eu, and SN 2003B, named for the years of their observations.

The heart of NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy that lies about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax.
The heart of NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy that lies about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth

This image of NGC 1097 was taken using two of Hubble’s instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). To create this one image, both instruments were used to observe the same target, then data from both were combined to create the image.

Recommended Videos

“The idea that two different cameras can take a single image is not very intuitive,” Hubble scientists explain. “However, it makes far more sense after delving into how beautiful astronomical images like this are composed. Our eyes can detect light waves at optical wavelengths between roughly 380 and 750 nanometers, using three types of receptors, each of which is sensitive to just a slice of that range. Our brain interprets these specific wavelengths as colors. By contrast, a telescope camera like the WFC3 or ACS is sensitive to a single, broad range of wavelengths to maximize the amount of light collected. Raw images from telescopes are always in grayscale, only showing the amount of the light captured across all those wavelengths.”

Both the WFC3 and ACS were used to image in the galaxy in particular wavelengths, as controlled using filters. Each filter is used to look at a specific wavelength corresponding to a certain color and produces a greyscale image. Then a total of seven of these filtered images were combined to produce the image as seen above.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
See incredible time lapses of two of space’s most famous objects
A Tour of Cassiopeia A & Crab Nebula Timelapses

Most objects in space, such as stars, have a lifecycle stretching over hundreds of thousands of years or more, so it's rare to see objects in the sky that look significantly different over a short period like a few years unless there's a dramatic transient event like a supernova. However, that's not to say that objects are static: Objects such as nebulae can be in flux, and, when observed closely, can be seen changing over time.

Quick Look: NASA's Chandra Releases Doubleheader of Blockbuster Hits

Read more
Celebrate Hubble’s 34th birthday with this gorgeous nebula image
In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The name 'Little Dumbbell' comes from its shape that is a two-lobed structure of colorful, mottled, glowing gases resembling a balloon that’s been pinched around a middle waist. Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the center. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red color is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.

Tomorrow, April 24, marks the 34th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. For more than three decades, this venerable old telescope has been peering out into space, observing stars, galaxies, and nebulae to understand more about the universe we live in. To celebrate this birthday, Hubble scientists have shared a new image showing the striking Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, which is located 3,400 light-years away.

In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. NASA, ESA, STScI

Read more
Biggest stellar black hole to date discovered in our galaxy
Astronomers have found the most massive stellar black hole in our galaxy, thanks to the wobbling motion it induces on a companion star. This artist’s impression shows the orbits of both the star and the black hole, dubbed Gaia BH3, around their common centre of mass. This wobbling was measured over several years with the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. Additional data from other telescopes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, confirmed that the mass of this black hole is 33 times that of our Sun. The chemical composition of the companion star suggests that the black hole was formed after the collapse of a massive star with very few heavy elements, or metals, as predicted by theory.

Black holes generally come in two sizes: big and really big. As they are so dense, they are measured in terms of mass rather than size, and astronomers call these two groups of stellar mass black holes (as in, equivalent to the mass of the sun) and supermassive black holes. Why there are hardly any intermediate-mass black holes is an ongoing question in astronomy research, and the most massive stellar mass black holes known in our galaxy tend to be up to 20 times the mass of the sun. Recently, though, astronomers have discovered a much larger stellar mass black hole that weighs 33 times the mass of the sun.

Not only is this new discovery the most massive stellar black hole discovered in our galaxy to date but it is also surprisingly close to us. Located just 2,000 light-years away, it is one of the closest known black holes to Earth.

Read more