Flat as a pancake

Esahubble_potw1351a_1024

esahubble_potw1351a December 23rd, 2013

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Located some 25 million light-years away, this new Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 373-8. Together with at least seven of its galactic neighbours, this galaxy is a member of the NGC 2997 group. We see it side-on as a thin, glittering streak across the sky, with all its contents neatly aligned in the same plane. We see so many galaxies like this flat, stretched-out pancakes that our brains barely process their shape. But let us stop and ask: Why are galaxies stretched out and aligned like this? Try spinning around in your chair with your legs and arms out. Slowly pull your legs and arms inwards, and tuck them in against your body. Notice anything? You should have started spinning faster. This effect is due to conservation of angular momentum, and its true for galaxies, too. This galaxy began life as a humungous ball of slowly rotating gas. Collapsing in upon itself, it spun faster and faster until, like pizza dough spinning and stretching in the air, a disc started to form. Anything that bobbed up and down through this disc was pulled back in line with this motion, creating a streamlined shape. Angular momentum is always conserved from a spinning galactic disc 25 million light-years away from us, to any astronomer, or astronomer-wannabe, spinning in his office chair.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1351a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
ESO 373-8
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_potw1351a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 9h 33m 18.3s
DEC = -33° 1’ 57.6”
Orientation
North is 14.9° CW
Field of View
3.4 x 2.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Antlia

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1351a_1280
×
ID
potw1351a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
ESO 373-8
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2013-12-23T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1351a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
V, I
Central Wavelength
606, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
143.326363579, -33.0326780096
Reference Dimension
4055.0, 3050.0
Reference Pixel
2027.5, 1525.0
Scale
-1.39117608721e-05, 1.39117608721e-05
Rotation
-14.919999999999996
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1351a
Metadata Date
2013-08-30T18:47:50+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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