The Needle Galaxy

Esahubble_potw1251a_1024

esahubble_potw1251a December 17th, 2012

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola

Like finding a silver needle in the haystack of space, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the spiral galaxy IC 2233, one of the flattest galaxies known. Typical spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are usually made up of three principal visible components: the disc where the spiral arms and most of the gas and dust is concentrated; the halo, a rough and sparse sphere around the disc that contains little gas, dust or star formation; and the central bulge at the heart of the disc, which is formed by a large concentration of ancient stars surrounding the Galactic Centre. However, IC 2233 is far from being typical. This object is a prime example of a super-thin galaxy, where the galaxys diameter is at least ten times larger than the thickness. These galaxies consist of a simple disc of stars when seen edge on. This orientation makes them fascinating to study, giving another perspective on spiral galaxies. An important characteristic of this type of objects is that they have a low brightness and almost all of them have no bulge at all. The bluish colour that can be seen along the disc gives evidence of the spiral nature of the galaxy, indicating the presence of hot, luminous, young stars, born out of clouds of interstellar gas. In addition, unlike typical spirals, IC 2233 shows no well-defined dust lane. Only a few small patchy regions can be identified in the inner regions both above and below the galaxys mid-plane. Lying in the constellation of Lynx, IC 2233 is located about 40 million light-years away from Earth. This galaxy was discovered by British astronomer Isaac Roberts in 1894. This image was taken with the Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys, combining visible and infrared exposures. The field of view in this image is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Luca Limatola.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1251a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
IC 2233
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_potw1251a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 8h 13m 56.3s
DEC = 45° 44’ 36.7”
Orientation
North is 98.0° CW
Field of View
3.2 x 3.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Lynx

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Orange Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (R) 606.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Orange
Cyan
Esahubble_potw1251a_1280
×
ID
potw1251a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
IC 2233
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola
Release Date
2012-12-17T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1251a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Orange, Cyan
Band
Infrared, Optical
Bandpass
I, R
Central Wavelength
814, 606
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
123.484644297, 45.7435165343
Reference Dimension
3881.0, 4011.0
Reference Pixel
1940.0, 2005.0
Scale
-1.38910695183e-05, 1.38910695183e-05
Rotation
-97.960000000000065
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
potw1251a
Metadata Date
2012-11-21T10:04:07+01:00
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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