Hubble spotlights a swirling spiral

Esahubble_potw2316a_1024

esahubble_potw2316a April 17th, 2023

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick, R. J. Foley

The barred spiral galaxy UGC 678 takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The spectacular galaxy lies around 260 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces and is almost face on, allowing its lazily winding spiral arms to stretch across this image. In the foreground, a smaller edge-on galaxy seems to bisect the upper portion of UGC 678. Just like humans, stars have a natural lifecycle; they are born, grow up, and eventually grow old and die. Studying this stellar life cycle — usually referred to as stellar evolution — is an important topic for astronomers. The ends of star lives can be marked by truly spectacular events, including titanic supernova explosions, the creation of unimaginably dense neutron stars, and even the birth of black holes. UGC 678 was recently found to be host to one of these events; in 2020 a robotic telescope scanning the night sky in search of dangerous asteroids discovered evidence of an enormous supernova explosion in the galaxy. Two separate Hubble observations turned to UGC 678 to scour the galaxy in search of the aftermath of its supernova explosion. One team of astronomers used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, and the other the Wide Field Camera 3, but both aimed to explore UGC 678 in the hope of unearthing clues to the identity of the star that produced the 2020 supernova. [Image Description: A large spiral galaxy. It has many narrow arms that are tightly-twisted in the centre, but at the ends they point out in different directions. The galaxy’s core glows brightly, while its disc is mostly faint, but with bright blue spots throughout the arms. A few smaller spiral galaxies at varying angles are visible in front, and it is surrounded by other tiny stars and galaxies, on a black background.] Links Pan: Hubble spotlights a swirling spiral

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2316a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
UGC 678
Esahubble_potw2316a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 1h 6m 14.0s
DEC = 3° 34’ 16.3”
Orientation
North is 19.6° CCW
Field of View
3.3 x 2.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Pisces

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw2316a_1280
×
ID
potw2316a
Subject Category
Subject Name
UGC 678
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick, R. J. Foley
Release Date
2023-04-17T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2316a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, I, V, V
Central Wavelength
814, 814, 555, 555
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
16.55849448929303, 3.571193880512162
Reference Dimension
4931.0, 3444.0
Reference Pixel
2465.5, 1722.0
Scale
-1.1002458821259261e-05, 1.1002458821259261e-05
Rotation
19.619999999999997
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2316a
Metadata Date
2023-04-01T04:26:31+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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