Astronomers working with the Hubble telescope have shared a new photo. It shows a picturesque spiral galaxy NGC 4941.
NGC 4941 is located about 67 million light-years away from Earth toward the constellation Virgo. By astronomical standards, that’s not a very long distance — but a huge gap in terms of life. During the time it took for the light emitted by NGC 4941 to reach our planet, it changed geologic epochs on our planet. There was a mass extinction in which dinosaurs disappeared and mammals took over dominance.
The Hubble image shows many fine details of NGC 4941’s structure. These include individual star clusters and filamentary clouds of gas and dust. The galaxy has an active nucleus. At its center is a supermassive black hole fed by gas. As it collects gas from its surroundings, a disk of superheated material forms around it. It glows brightly in various ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.
But the black hole’s influence doesn’t stop there. Like stars, but on a much larger scale, active galactic nuclei shape their surroundings with winds, radiation, and powerful jets, altering not only star formation but also the evolution of the galaxy as a whole.
The data used for the Hubble image came from an observational program studying the star formation and feedback cycle in nearby galaxies. When stars form in dense, cold clots of gas, they begin to affect their surroundings. Stars heat and stir the gas clouds in which they are born with wind, starlight, and eventually (for massive luminaries) supernova explosions. These processes are called stellar feedback, and they affect the rate at which new stars form in the galaxy.
Earlier we reported on an amazing cosmic mirage photographed by the James Webb telescope.
According to Esahubble
