14 DAY TRIAL // A new space image delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope and released by NASA researchers this past Friday brings into focus a gorgeous spiral galaxy.
This galaxy is located at a distance of about 70 million light-years from our planet, in the constellation of Virgo. Together with about 1,500 other galaxies, it forms the Virgo Cluster, a cosmic neighborhood of sorts.
Mind you, our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is too part of such an agglomeration of galaxies. Our space neighborhood is known to astronomers as the Local Group.
The galaxy revealed in this latest Hubble image, available below, goes by the name of NGC 4639. It's not your usual kind of spiral galaxy, but a barred spiral galaxy. What this means is it has a central bar-like structure.
“In this image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, one can clearly see the bar running through the bright, round core of the galaxy,” scientists say.
“Bars are found in around two-thirds of spiral galaxies, and are through to be a natural phase in their evolution,” they further explain in the image's description.
New stars, hundreds or maybe even thousands of them, are now forming in the galaxy's spiral arms. At the same time, however, a gargantuan black hole positioned at the galaxy's core is eating away at its gas reserves.
This region of NGC 4639 where the galaxy's black hole is feasting on whatever clouds of gas come its way is called an active galactic nucleus.
