esahubble_potw1641a October 10th, 2016
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast)
This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, shows a spiral galaxy named NGC 278. This cosmic beauty lies some 38 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia (The Seated Queen). While NGC 278 may look serene, it is anything but. The galaxy is currently undergoing an immense burst of star formation. This flurry of activity is shown by the unmistakable blue-hued knots speckling the galaxys spiral arms, each of which marks a clump of hot newborn stars. However, NGC 278s star formation is somewhat unusual; it does not extend to the galaxys outer edges, but is only taking place within an inner ring some 6500 light-years across. This two-tiered structure is visible in this image while the galaxys centre is bright, its extremities are much darker. This odd configuration is thought to have been caused by a merger with a smaller, gas-rich galaxy while the turbulent event ignited the centre of NGC 278, the dusty remains of the small snack then dispersed into the galaxys outer regions. Whatever the cause, such a ring of star formation, called a nuclear ring, is extremely unusual in galaxies without a bar at their centre, making NGC 278 a very intriguing sight.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1641a/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
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