Hubble captures a messy irregular galaxy which hosted a supernova

By Georgina Torbet March 11, 2023

This week’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a dramatic spiral galaxy called NGC 5486, which is shot through with wisps of pink showing regions where new stars are being born.

Located 110 million light-years away in the famous constellation of Ursa Major, this galaxy is a type called an irregular spiral galaxy because its arms are wandering and indistinct. If you compare the image of this galaxy to one of a quintessential spiral galaxy like NGC 2336, you’ll see that a non-irregular spiral galaxy has clearly defined arms that reach out from its center and are symmetrical.

The irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486 hangs against a background of dim, distant galaxies. — The irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486 hangs against a background of dim, distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The tenuous disk of the galaxy is threaded through with pink wisps of star formation, which stand out from the diffuse glow of the galaxy’s bright core. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick

As Hubble scientists point out in their description of this irregular spiral galaxy, it also sits nearby to a very famous spiral galaxy called the Pinwheel Galaxy. The Pinwheel is a type called a grand design spiral galaxy because it is so neat and organized, with clear prominent arms and a very regular structure. The Pinwheel galaxy was observed by Hubble in 2006 when it was the largest and most detailed image of a spiral galaxy ever taken by Hubble, made by combining 51 individual Hubble images and adding some elements from ground-based telescopes as well.

The comparatively messy structure of galaxy NGC 5486 doesn’t mean it isn’t of scientific interest though. It was studied as part of a series of observations into supernovae, when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses, giving off a huge burst of energy.

“This observation comes from a selection of Hubble images exploring debris left behind by Type II supernovae,” Hubble scientists write. “As massive stars reach the end of their lives, they cast off huge amounts of gas and dust before ending their lives in titanic supernova explosions. NGC 5486 hosted a supernova in 2004, and astronomers used the keen vision of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to explore the aftermath in the hopes of learning more about these explosive events.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

See what James Webb and Hubble are observing right now with this tool

james webb hubble live tracker screenshot 2024 03 06 220259

If you're looking for a relaxing way to peruse the fascinating sights of space on your lunch break, then a newly updated tool from NASA has you covered. The Space Telescope Live tools show the current targets of the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, letting you browse the cosmos from the perspective of two of the hardest-working telescopes out there.

You can visit the web-based tools at WebbTelescope for the James Webb Space Telescope and HubbleSite for the Hubble Space Telescope. Clicking on a link will bring you to a portal showing the current and past observations of the telescope and a ton of detail about the observations.

Space

Hubble spots a massive star forming amid clouds of dust and gas

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is a relatively close star-forming region known as IRAS 16562-3959.

A stunning new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the birth of a new, massive star at around 30 times the mass of our sun. Nestled with a nearby star-forming region called IRAS 16562-3959, the baby star is located within our galaxy and around 5,900 light-years from Earth.

You can see the sparkle of bright stars throughout the image, with the star-forming region visible as the orange-colored clouds of dust and gas stretching diagonally across the frame. These clouds are where dust and gas clump together to form knots, gradually attracting more dust and gas, growing over time to become protostars.

Space

Hubble spies baby stars being born amid chaos of interacting galaxies

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. They form when knots of gas gravitationally collapse to create about 1 million newborn stars per cluster.

When two galaxies collide, the results can be destructive, with one of the galaxies ending up ripped apart, but it can also be constructive too. In the swirling masses of gas and dust pulled around by the gravitational forces of interacting galaxies, there can be bursts of star formation, creating new generations of stars. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured one such hotbed of star formation in galaxy AM 1054-325, which has been distorted into an unusual shape due to the gravitational tugging of a nearby galaxy.

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, as seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. NASA, ESA, STScI, Jayanne English (University of Manitoba)