Latest news with #NGC3596
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Space photo of the day for May 9, 2025
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. You are face-to-face with spiral galaxy NGC 3596, courtesy of an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. British astronomer William Herschel was the first person to see and document the galaxy in 1784. NGC 3596 is a typical spiral galaxy, other than its straight-on orientation when viewed from Earth. The bright arms of NGC 3596 are comprised of stars, gas and dust. It is that area where the most stars are being formed, as seen by the bright pink regions and young blue stars tracing the galaxy's arms. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo, the Lion. Scientists still don't know why galaxies like this one take on this spiral shape, in part because of the sheer diversity of other examples. "Some have clear spiral arms, while others have patchy, feathery arms. Some have prominent bars across their centers, while others have compact, circular nuclei. Some have close neighbors, while others are isolated," NASA officials wrote in a description of NGC 3596. Today, researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas. Stars, gas, and dust bunch up as they enter a galaxy's spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy. You can read more about spiral galaxies and learn how they get their "feathers." You can also read about the formation of the arms of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
Digital Trends
07-05-2025
- Science
- Digital Trends
Hubble images two spiral galaxies: one perfect and one peculiar
You might have heard that galaxies come in different types, classified based on their shapes. There are elliptical galaxies, which are smooth and featureless, looking like giant blobs of light. Then there are irregular galaxies, which have often been pulled into strange shapes by the forces of gravity as they merged with or passed close by another galaxy. And then there are the iconic spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, which have long arm-like shapes reaching out from their center to form a distinctive structure. However, not all spiral galaxies are created equal, as two recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope show. The image above shows galaxy NGC 3596, a neat and orderly spiral galaxy. And the image below shows galaxy Arp 184 (also known as NGC 1961), which is a type called a peculiar spiral galaxy. One of the most obvious differences between the two images is the way that the galaxies appear from Earth: we are looking at NGC 3596 face-on, so it appears particularly regular. Galaxy Arp 184, however, we are seeing from an angle, so it looks different. More than that, though, Arp 184 is skewed so that it isn't perfectly spiral shaped. However, it clearly isn't a featureless elliptical galaxy either, so it was categorized as a peculiar galaxy in the delightfully named Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, compiled by Halton Arp in 1966. Recommended Videos The spiral arm closest to us in the image of Arp 184 is prominent and broad, but there is no equivalent large arm on the opposite side. The galaxy is asymmetrical, which is what marks it out as unusual. Compare that to galaxy NGC 3596, which has neat arms of similar sizes, which glow pink in this image to represent areas of busy star formation. So why do some galaxies develop spiral arms but not others, and why do these arms come in so many different shapes and sizes? That's something that astronomers are still studying, but it has to do with the density of stars in certain parts of the galaxy. 'Researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas rather than a physical structure,' Hubble scientists explain. 'As stars, gas and dust orbit within a galaxy's disc, they pass in and out of the spiral arms. Much like cars moving through a traffic jam, these materials slow down and bunch up as they enter a spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy.' Please enable Javascript to view this content
