Scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope have published a new image taken by it. It shows the spiral galaxy UGC 11397.
UGC 11397 is located 250 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary spiral galaxy. UGC 11397 has two graceful spiral arms illuminated by stars and outlined by dark, lumpy clouds of dust.
What distinguishes UGC 11397 from a typical spiral galaxy is its center, where a supermassive black hole grows, with a mass 174 million times greater than that of the Sun. When a black hole captures gas, dust, and even entire stars from its surroundings, this doomed matter heats up and puts on a fantastic cosmic light show. Matter captured by a black hole emits light ranging from gamma rays to radio waves and can brighten and dim without warning.
However, in some galaxies, including UGC 11397, dense dust clouds obscure most of this activity from view in visible light. Despite this, astronomers still managed to detect it thanks to its bright X-ray emission. Unlike visible light, it passes freely through dust clouds, making it possible to find hidden black holes. Thanks to this, astronomers have classified UGC 11397 as a Type II Seyfert galaxy. This category includes active galaxies whose central regions are obscured by a ring-shaped cloud of dust and gas.
With the help of Hubble, researchers are studying hundreds of galaxies similar to UGC 11397, which have actively growing black holes at their centers. Its observations will help determine their mass, determine how black holes grew at the beginning of the universe’s history, and even study how stars with such extreme neighbors are formed.
According to Esahubble
