A Discovery of Ghostly Arms

Esahubble_potw2029a_1024

esahubble_potw2029a July 20th, 2020

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gregg

A notable feature of most spiral galaxies is the multitude of arching spiral arms that seemingly spin out from the galaxys centre. In this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the stunning silvery-blue spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 4848 are observed in immense detail. Not only do we see the inner section of the spiral arms containing hundreds of thousands of young, bright, blue stars, but Hubble has also captured the extremely faint wispy tails of the outer spiral arms. This wispy barred spiral galaxy was first discovered in 1865 by the German astronomer Heinrich Louis dArrest. In his career, Heinrich also notably discovered the asteroid 76 Freia and many other galaxies and he also contributed to the discovery of Neptune. If you are situated in the Northern Hemisphere with a large telescope, you might just be able to observe the ghost-like appearance of this faint galaxy within faint constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenices Hair).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2029a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 4848
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_potw2029a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 58m 4.2s
DEC = 28° 14’ 46.1”
Orientation
North is 15.9° CW
Field of View
2.3 x 1.7 arcminutes
Constellation
Coma Berenices

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Optical (Long Pass) 600.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Optical (Long Pass) 350.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Orange
Cyan
Esahubble_potw2029a_1280
×
ID
potw2029a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
NGC 4848
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gregg
Release Date
2020-07-20T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2029a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Orange, Cyan
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
Long Pass, Long Pass
Central Wavelength
600, 350
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
194.517456107, 28.2461250626
Reference Dimension
3422.0, 2516.0
Reference Pixel
1711.0, 1258.0
Scale
-1.09962213438e-05, 1.09962213438e-05
Rotation
-15.940000000000003
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
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2029a
Metadata Date
2020-05-27T09:00:26+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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