Hubble telescope photographed an intermediate spiral galaxy

The Hubble mission support group has published a new photo. It demonstrates the spiral galaxy NGC 1961.

Galaxy NGC 1961 (Hubble photo). Source: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), R. Foley (University of California — Santa Cruz)

NGC 1961 is located at a distance of 180 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Camelopardalis. It is classified as an intermediate spiral galaxy with an active core. Such objects occupy an intermediate position between galaxies with and without a bar. This is the name of the structure crossing the center, consisting of stars and interstellar gas. It connects the core with the spiral arms and acts as a kind of “fuel pipeline”, passing through the gas from the spiral arms. Part of this gas becomes a building material for the formation of new stars, part is absorbed by the central black hole.

Due to the described mechanism, many spiral galaxies with a bar have active nuclei. NGC 1961 is no exception. It has an extremely bright core. The supermassive black hole hiding in it very actively absorbs matter, which is accompanied by the formation of jets and the release of a huge amount of energy.

Due to the brightness of the core, literally eclipsing the neighboring regions with its brilliance, such galaxies are quite difficult to consider. But thanks to its technical capabilities, Hubble managed to overcome this limitation. Its image shows a scattering of young stars inhabiting NGC 1961, shining with blue light.

Earlier we talked about how the James Webb telescope photographed the center of the galaxy with a double bar.

According to https://www.nasa.gov

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