Skip to main content

Hubble snaps an image of a galaxy in our cosmic backyard

Every week, astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope share an image of space collected by the telescope. This week, the Hubble image is of a nearby galaxy called LEDA 48062, located just 30 million light-years away from our own galaxy — making it practically next door in cosmic terms.

The galaxy was observed as part of a project called Every Known Nearby Galaxy, which aims to use Hubble to study every galaxy within 10 megaparsecs (33 million light-years) of the Milky Way. “By getting to know our galactic neighbors, astronomers can determine what types of stars reside in various galaxies and also map out the local structure of the universe,” Hubble scientists write.

Tthe galaxy LEDA 48062 in the constellation Perseus.
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy LEDA 48062 in the constellation Perseus. LEDA 48062 is the faint, sparse, amorphous galaxy on the right side of the image, and it is accompanied by a more sharply defined neighbor on the left – the large, disk-like lenticular galaxy UGC 8603. A smattering of more distant galaxies litters the background while a handful of foreground stars shine brightly throughout the image. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Tully

In this image, LEDA 48062 is the loose, fuzzy shape to the right of the frame. You can see many other galaxies in the image as well, including the clearly defined bar shape on the left — which is a lenticular galaxy called UGC 8603.

Galaxies come in three main types: spiral galaxies like our Milky Way, with a central bulge surrounded by a flat disk with arms reaching out in a spiral shape; elliptical galaxies, which are smooth and have an even distribution of light, making them appear like an ellipsis; and lenticular galaxies, which are halfway between these other two with a central bulge but no spiral structure.

There is also a fourth class of galaxy called irregular galaxies, which do not have a clear structure. These are often galaxies that started out as one of the three types above but were pulled into an irregular shape by the forces of gravity. This can happen when two galaxies are merging as their gravitational interactions can pull them into strange shapes.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Ingenuity and Perseverance snap photos of each other on Mars
The Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars, in an image taken by the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity recently made its 50th flight.

Everyone's favorite Mars double act, the Ingenuity helicopter and the Perseverance rover, have been traveling together recently after spending several months apart. As they explore the site of an ancient river delta in the Jezero crater, the pair have snapped images of each other that were recently shared by NASA.

The Perseverance's cameras caught this great shot of Ingenuity, which, as noted in the rover's Twitter post, is now considerably dustier than it was when it first deployed from under the rover's belly two years ago. In its two years on the red planet, Ingenuity has made more than 50 flights, which is incredible when you consider that it was designed to perform just five flights. During that time, Ingenuity had to take a break from long flights to deal with the cold martian winter, but since the beginning of the year, the helicopter has been back, making some of its longest flights yet.

Read more
Supermassive black hole spews out jet of matter in first-of-its-kind image
Scientists observing the compact radio core of M87 have discovered new details about the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. In this artist’s conception, the black hole’s massive jet is seen rising up from the centre of the black hole. The observations on which this illustration is based represent the first time that the jet and the black hole shadow have been imaged together, giving scientists new insights into how black holes can launch these powerful jets.

As well as pulling in anything which comes to close to them, black holes can occasionally expel matter at very high speeds. When clouds of dust and gas approach the event horizon of a black hole, some of it will fall inward, but some can be redirected outward in highly energetic bursts, resulting in dramatic jets of matter that shoot out at speeds approaching the speed of light. The jets can spread for thousands of light-years, with one jet emerging from each of the black hole's poles in a phenomenon thought to be related to the black hole's spin.

Scientists observing the compact radio core of M87 have discovered new details about the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. In this artist’s conception, the black hole’s massive jet of matter is seen rising up from the center of the black hole. The observations on which this illustration is based represent the first time that the jet and the black hole shadow have been imaged together, giving scientists new insights into how black holes can launch these powerful jets. S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Read more
Hubble celebrates its 33rd birthday with stunning nebula image
Astronomers are celebrating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and is located approximately 960 light-years away.

It will soon be the 33rd anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, and to celebrate this milestone, Hubble scientists have shared a stunning image taken by the telescope of a picturesque nebula. NGC 1333 is a busy stellar nursery, with new stars forming among the cloud of dust and gas located 960 light-years away.

The beautiful image of the nebula shows swirls of dark dust around glowing points of light where new stars are being born. To capture this scene, Hubble used its instruments across their full wavelengths, from ultraviolet through the optical light range and into the near-infrared. Hubble took the image using its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, which used several filter across different wavelengths that were then assigned to colors (Blue: F475W, Green: F606W, Red: F657N and F814W) to create the colorful final result.

Read more