Hubble captures a wonky galaxy being pulled out of shape

By Georgina Torbet Updated April 28, 2022

This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the trailing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral galaxy 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At first glance, the delicate tracery of bright spiral arms and dark dust lanes resembles countless other spiral galaxies. A closer look reveals a strangely lopsided galaxy shaped by gravitational interaction and intense star formation. — This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the trailing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral galaxy 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At first glance, the delicate tracery of bright spiral arms and dark dust lanes resembles countless other spiral galaxies. A closer look reveals a strangely lopsided galaxy shaped by gravitational interaction and intense star formation. ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Sell Acknowledgement: L. Shatz

Most spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, tend to be symmetrical. However, sometimes a dramatic event can happen to a galaxy and pull it into an asymmetric shape, like what is happening to the galaxy NGC 2276 in the constellation of Cepheus. This galaxy was recently imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, and though it might look like a typical spiral galaxy if you look at it quickly, on closer inspection you can see that it has an unusually wonky shape.

There are in fact two oddities about this particular galaxy, which are caused by two different types of interaction. In the top right of the image, you can see that one of the spiral arms seems to be peeling away from the main body of the galaxy. This is due to a nearby companion galaxy, NCG 2300. This companion galaxy is exerting a gravitational pull on NCG 2276 and has twisted it out of shape. In fact, it has twisted the galaxy so much that it appears to be face-on to us on Earth, but in fact, the galaxy faces away at an angle.

The other oddity is on the left-hand side of the image. You can see that there are many more blue areas in this region than in the rest of the galaxy. These blue regions are areas of star formation, where new, young stars grow brightly. This star formation is particularly intense in this area due to the galaxy’s interaction with the hot gas which lies between galaxy clusters, called the intracluster medium.

Although we usually think of the space between galaxies as being empty nothingness, in fact, there can be gases such as hydrogen and helium there and even heavier elements such as iron. When it comes close to a galaxy like NCG 2276, this matter can become clumped together under the force of gravity, where it provides material for new stars.

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

Celebrate Hubble’s 34th birthday with this gorgeous nebula image

In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The name 'Little Dumbbell' comes from its shape that is a two-lobed structure of colorful, mottled, glowing gases resembling a balloon that’s been pinched around a middle waist. Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the center. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red color is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.

Tomorrow, April 24, marks the 34th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. For more than three decades, this venerable old telescope has been peering out into space, observing stars, galaxies, and nebulae to understand more about the universe we live in. To celebrate this birthday, Hubble scientists have shared a new image showing the striking Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, which is located 3,400 light-years away.

In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. NASA, ESA, STScI

Space

Hubble discovers over 1,000 new asteroids thanks to photobombing

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble’s field of view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, which is evidenced by the dashed pattern.

The Hubble Space Telescope is most famous for taking images of far-off galaxies, but it is also useful for studying objects right here in our own solar system. Recently, researchers have gotten creative and found a way to use Hubble data to detect previously unknown asteroids that are mostly located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The researchers discovered an incredible 1,031 new asteroids, many of them small and difficult to detect with several hundred of them less than a kilometer in size. To identify the asteroids, the researchers combed through a total of 37,000 Hubble images taken over a 19-year time period, identifying the tell-tale trail of asteroids zipping past Hubble's camera.

Space

Hubble spots a bright galaxy peering out from behind a dark nebula

The subject of this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the spiral galaxy IC 4633, located 100 million light-years away from us in the constellation Apus. IC 4633 is a galaxy rich in star-forming activity and also hosts an active galactic nucleus at its core. From our point of view, the galaxy is tilted mostly towards us, giving astronomers a fairly good view of its billions of stars.

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy partly hidden by a huge cloud of dust known as a dark nebula. The galaxy IC 4633 still shines brightly and beautifully in the main part of the image, but to the bottom right, you can see dark smudges of dust that are blocking the light from this part of the galaxy.

Taken using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument, the image also incorporates data from the DECam instrument on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, which is located in Chile. By bringing together data from the space-based Hubble and the ground-based DECam, astronomers can get a better look at this galaxy, located 100 million light-years away, and the dark dust partially obscuring it.