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By NASA
2 min read
Hubble Sees a Spiral and a Star
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the face-on spiral galaxy NGC 4900. ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. J. Smartt, C. Kilpatrick
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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a sparkling spiral galaxy paired with a prominent star, both in the constellation Virgo. While the galaxy and the star appear to be close to one another, even overlapping, they’re actually a great distance apart. The star, marked with four long diffraction spikes, is in our own galaxy. It’s just 7,109 light-years away from Earth. The galaxy, named NGC 4900, lies about 45 million light-years from Earth.
This image combines data from two of Hubble’s instruments: the Advanced Camera for Surveys, installed in 2002 and still in operation today, and the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was in use from 1993 to 2009. The data used here were taken more than 20 years apart for two different observing programs — a real testament to Hubble’s long scientific lifetime!
Both programs aimed to understand the demise of massive stars. In one, researchers studied the sites of past supernovae, aiming to estimate the masses of the stars that exploded and investigate how supernovae interact with their surroundings. They selected NGC 4900 for the study because it hosted a supernova named SN 1999br.
In the other program, researchers laid the groundwork for studying future supernovae by collecting images of more than 150 nearby galaxies. When researchers detect a supernova in one of these galaxies, they can refer to these images, examining the star at the location of the supernova. Identifying a supernova progenitor star in pre-explosion images gives valuable information about how, when, and why supernovae occur.
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Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
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Last Updated Mar 13, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hearing Hubble
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s Galaxies
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:03:21 Meet Hera, our very own asteroid detective. Together with two CubeSats – Milani the rock decoder and Juventas the radar visionary – Hera is off on an adventure to explore Didymos, a double asteroid system that is typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to planet Earth.
In September 2022 NASA’s DART spacecraft tested if it was possible to divert an asteroid by giving it a shove – and found out that it was! Important knowledge, should we wish to avoid going the same way as the dinosaurs. Astronomers can observe from afar how the smaller asteroid’s orbit has shifted since DART’s impact, but there is still a missing piece of the puzzle if we want to fully understand how ‘kinetic impacting’ works in practice. Suitable for kids and adults alike, this episode of ‘The Incredible Adventures of Hera’ explains what ESA’s asteroid detective and its CubeSat assistants are doing on their cosmic roadtrip through space towards the asteroid, and why it involves skimming close to Mars.
Watch the other episodes of The Incredible Adventures of the Hera Mission
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Unveils a Glittering View of Sh2-284
Hubble’s infrared view of emission nebula Sh2-284 provides a glimpse of the brilliant young stars hidden within clouds of gas and dust. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Andersen (European Southern Observatory – Germany); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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A tiny fraction of the stellar nursery known as Sh2-284 is visible in this glittering, star-filled NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. This immense region of gas and dust is the birthing place of stars, which shine among the clouds. Bright clusters of newborn stars glow pink in infrared light, and clouds of gas and dust, resembling puffy cumulus clouds, are dotted with dark knots of denser dust.
This image shows an infrared view from Hubble, giving an excellent view of the stars that might otherwise be obscured by Sh2-284’s clouds. Unlike visible light, infrared wavelengths can travel through clouds of gas and dust, providing a glimpse of the stars forming within the obscuring clouds.
The nebula is shaped by a young central star cluster, Dolidze 25 (not visible in the Hubble image), whose stars range from 1.5 to 13 million years old (our Sun, in contrast, is 4.6 billion years old). The cluster blasts out ionizing winds and radiation, pushing at the gas and dust of the nebula and carving out intricate shapes and pillars, as seen in detail here. This ionizing radiation gives Sh2-284 its classification as an HII region, an emission nebula consisting primarily of ionized hydrogen. An emission nebula like Sh2-284 glows with its own light as stars within or nearby energize its gas with a flood of intense ultraviolet radiation.
The ground-based image (top) of M24 shows the location of the Hubble view (bottom). The European Southern Observatory’s visible-light image shows prominent clouds of gas and dust, while the Hubble image’s infrared vision highlights the stars within and behind the clouds. Ground-based image: ESO/VPHAS+ Team; Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and M. Andersen (European Southern Observatory – Germany); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Sh2-284 is also a low-metallicity region, which means it is poor in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. These conditions mimic the early universe, when matter was mostly helium and hydrogen and heavier elements were just beginning to form via nuclear fusion within massive stars. Hubble took these images as part of an effort to examine how low metallicity influences stellar formation and how this would apply to the early universe.
Sh2-284 resides 15,000 light-years away at the end of an outer spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation Monoceros.
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Exploring the Birth of Stars
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 08, 2025 Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Emission Nebulae Goddard Space Flight Center Nebulae Star-forming Nebulae The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Cosmic Adventure
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s 35th Anniversary
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 3 min read
Hubble Jams With A Cosmic Guitar
Elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B (upper left) and spiral galaxy NGC 3561A (lower right) form a shimmering guitar shape in the ongoing merger known collectively as Arp 105. NASA, ESA and M. West (Lowell Observatory); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Arp 105 is a dazzling ongoing merger between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy drawn together by gravity, characterized by a long, drawn out tidal tail of stars and gas more than 362,000 light-years long. The immense tail, which extends beyond this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, was pulled from the two galaxies by their gravitational interactions and is embedded with star clusters and dwarf galaxies. The distinctively shaped arrangement of galaxies and tail gives the grouping its nickname: The Guitar.
The gravitational dance between elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B and spiral galaxy NGC 3561A creates a wealth of fascinating colliding galaxy features. A long lane of dark dust emerging from the elliptical galaxy ends in, and may be feeding, a bright blue area of star formation on the base of the guitar known as Ambartsumian’s Knot. Ambartsumian’s Knot is a tidal dwarf galaxy, a type of star-forming system that develops from the debris in tidal arms of interacting galaxies.
Two more bright blue areas of star formation are obvious in the Hubble image at the edges of the distorted spiral galaxy. The region to the left in the spiral galaxy is likely very similar to Ambartsumian’s Knot, a knot of intense star formation triggered by the merger. The region to the right is still under investigation ― it could be part of the collision, but its velocity and spectral data (indicating distance) are different from the rest of the system, so it may be a foreground galaxy.
Thin, faint tendrils of gas and dust are just barely visible stretching between and connecting the two galaxies. These tendrils are particularly interesting to astronomers since they may help define the timescale of the evolution of this collision.
A multitude of more-distant background galaxies are visible around and even through this merging duo. The bright blue blob of stars to the left of Ambartsumian’s Knot may be a particularly bright background galaxy.
Arp 105 is one of the brightest objects in the crowded galaxy cluster Abell 1185 in the constellation Ursa Major. Abell 1185, located around 400 million light-years away, is a chaotic cluster of at least 82 galaxies, many of which are interacting, as well as a number of wandering globular clusters that are not gravitationally attached to any particular galaxy. This Hubble image was taken as part of a study of the ongoing creation of galactic and intergalactic stellar populations in Abell 1185.
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Hubble’s Galaxies
Galaxy Details and Mergers
Hubble Focus E-Book: Galaxies through Space and Time
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Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Mar 08, 2025 Editor NASA Hubble Mission Team Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Elliptical Galaxies Hubble Space Telescope Interacting Galaxies Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Partners in Science
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s Galaxies
View the full article
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spies a Spectacular Starburst Galaxy
Starburst spiral NGC 4536 is bright with blue clusters of star formation and pink clumps of ionized hydrogen. NASA, ESA, and J. Lee (Space Telescope Science Institute); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Sweeping spiral arms extend from NGC 4536, littered with bright blue clusters of star formation and red clumps of hydrogen gas shining among dark lanes of dust. The galaxy’s shape may seem a little unusual, and that’s because it’s what’s known as an “intermediate galaxy”: not quite a barred spiral, but not exactly an unbarred spiral, either ― a hybrid of the two.
NGC 4536 is also a starburst galaxy, in which star formation is happening at a tremendous rate that uses up the gas in the galaxy relatively quickly, by galactic standards. Starburst galaxies can happen due to gravitational interactions with other galaxies or ― as seems to be the case for NGC 4536 ― when gas is packed into a small region. The bar-like structure of NGC 4536 may be driving gas inwards toward the nucleus, giving rise to a crescendo of star formation in a ring around the nucleus. Starburst galaxies birth lots of hot blue stars that burn fast and die quickly in explosions that unleash intense ultraviolet light (visible in blue), turning their surroundings into glowing clouds of ionized hydrogen, called HII regions (visible in red).
NGC 4536 is approximately 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered in 1784 by astronomer William Herschel. Hubble took this image of NGC 4536 as part of a project to study galactic environments to understand connections between young stars and cold gas, particularly star clusters and molecular clouds, throughout the local universe.
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Explore More
Hubble’s Galaxies
Galaxy Details and Mergers
Hubble Focus E-Book: Galaxies through Space and Time
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 08, 2025 Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Cosmic Adventure
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s 35th Anniversary
View the full article
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