A lopsided lynx

Esahubble_potw1632a_1024

esahubble_potw1632a August 8th, 2016

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

This galaxy, known as NGC 2337, resides 25 million light-years away in the constellation of Lynx. NGC 2337 is an irregular galaxy, meaning that it along with a quarter of all galaxies in the Universe lacks a distinct, regular appearance. The galaxy was discovered in 1877 by the French astronomer douard Stephan who, in the same year, discovered the galactic group Stephans Quintet (heic0910i). Although irregular galaxies may never win a beauty prize when competing with their more symmetrical spiral and elliptical peers, astronomers consider them to be very important. Some irregular galaxies may have once fallen into one of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, but were warped and deformed by a passing cosmic companion. As such, irregular galaxies provide astronomers with a valuable opportunity to learn more about galactic evolution and interaction. Despite the disruption, gravitational interactions between galaxies can kickstart star formation activity within the affected galaxies, which may explain the pockets of blue light scattered throughout NGC 2337. These patches and knots of blue signal the presence of young, newly formed, hot stars.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1632a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 2337
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Irregular
Esahubble_potw1632a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 7h 10m 14.9s
DEC = 44° 27’ 39.0”
Orientation
North is 131.7° CCW
Field of View
3.4 x 2.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Lynx

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_potw1632a_1280
×
ID
potw1632a
Subject Category
C.5.1.6  
Subject Name
NGC 2337
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2016-08-08T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1632a/
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
107.562062178, 44.4608375886
Reference Dimension
4070.0, 2691.0
Reference Pixel
2035.0, 1345.5
Scale
-1.3891740352e-05, 1.3891740352e-05
Rotation
131.72000000000003
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
potw1632a
Metadata Date
2016-03-11T19:37:07+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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