Watch: Hubble telescope spies a spiral galaxy 51M light-years away
What's the story
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the spiral galaxy NGC 7456, located more than 51 million light-years away in the constellation Grus (the Crane). The photograph reveals intricate details of the galaxy's patchy spiral arms and dark clumps of obscuring dust. These features provide valuable insights into how galaxies evolve over time.
Stellar activity
Stellar activity in NGC 7456
The Hubble Space Telescope's observations of NGC 7456 focused on the galaxy's stellar activity, including new stars, hydrogen clouds, and star clusters. The glowing pink regions in the image are rich reservoirs of gas where new stars are forming. They illuminate their surrounding clouds and cause the gas to emit a telltale red light.
Active galaxy
X-ray emissions from the galaxy
The ESA's XMM-Newton satellite has also imaged X-rays from NGC 7456 on several occasions, discovering many ultraluminous X-ray sources. These small, compact objects emit powerful X-rays, much more than researchers would expect given their size. The region around the galaxy's supermassive black hole is also spectacularly bright and energetic, making NGC 7456 an active galaxy with plenty of interesting features for astronomers to study.