Categories: galaxiesHubble

Hubble’s Stunning New View of Centaurus A

[/caption]

From a HubbleSite press release:

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble’s panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust.

The warped shape of Centaurus A’s disk of gas and dust is evidence for a past collision and merger with another galaxy. The resulting shockwaves cause hydrogen gas clouds to compress, triggering a firestorm of new star formation. These are visible in the red patches in this Hubble close-up.

At a distance of just over 11 million light-years, Centaurus A contains the closest active galactic nucleus to Earth. The center is home for a supermassive black hole that ejects jets of high-speed gas into space, but neither the supermassive or the jets are visible in this image.

This image was taken in July 2010 with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

A Blown-Glass Structure Could House Astronauts on the Moon

Humanity will eventually need somewhere to live on the Moon. While aesthetics might not be…

3 hours ago

A Lunar Map for the Best Places to Get Samples

How can a geologic map of a lunar impact crater created billions of years ago…

14 hours ago

Temperamental Stars are Messing With Our Exoplanet Efforts

We have the transit method to thank for the large majority of the exoplanets we've…

20 hours ago

A New Study Reveals How Dark Matter Dominated the Early Universe

During the 1970s, while probing distant galaxies to determine their mass, size, and other characteristics,…

22 hours ago

A Jumping Robot Could Leap Over Enceladus’ Geysers

Locomotion makes things move, and certain forms of locomotion make them move better than others.…

23 hours ago

JWST Finds the Smallest Asteroids Ever Seen in the Main Belt

The JWST was never intended to find asteroids. It was built to probe some of…

23 hours ago