A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a spiral galaxy about 150 million light-years away. But NASA says don’t be fooled: Its peaceful state masks a violent past.
Beautiful and peaceful now, but with a violent history
This “lazy winding spiral arm” image of galaxy NGC 976 was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Despite its calm appearance, NGC 976 experienced one of the most violent astronomical phenomena: a supernova explosion, the space organization said.
“These catastrophically violent events occur at the end of a massive star’s life and can overtake entire galaxies in a short period of time,” NASA/ESA explained. “While supernovae mark the death of massive stars, they It also leads to the production of heavy elements, which are incorporated into future generations of stars and planets.”
Supernovae also help astronomers measure the distances of distant galaxies, as the energy released into space by certain types of supernova explosions is described as “remarkably uniform,” allowing them to estimate their distance from Earth based on the brightness of the light when it finally arrives.
In this latest image taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, a series of observations from Hubble’s “nearby” galaxies (in quotation marks because they are still very far away from us, but very much in the grand scheme of the universe) close). Supernovae and “pulsating” stars called Cepheids.
“Both Cepheids and supernovae are used to measure astronomical distances, and galaxies containing both types of objects provide useful natural laboratories in which to calibrate the two methods against each other,” NASA explained.
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