Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the spiral galaxy NGC 2090.
This Hubble image shows NGC 2090, a spiral galaxy some 40 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Columba. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is based on data obtained through six filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker.
NGC 2090 is a spiral galaxy located in the southern constellation of Columba.
Also known as ESO 363-23, IRAS 05452-3416 or LEDA 17819, it was discovered on October 29, 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop.
“NGC 2090 is notable as a part of the group of galaxies studied in Hubble’s Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project, which aimed to determine a new state-of-the-art value for the Hubble constant, one of the then-new telescope’s primary science goals,” the Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“The contribution of NGC 2090 was in calibrating the Tully-Fisher (TF) distance method, by observing Cepheid variable stars in the galaxy.”
“The Cepheid-based measurement from that study in 1998 put NGC 2090 as 37 million light-years away.”
“The newest measurement from 2020, using the TF method, has NGC 2090 slightly farther away, at 40 million light-years.”
Before and since that project, NGC 2090 has been well studied as a very prominent nearby example of star formation.
It has been described as a flocculent spiral, meaning a spiral galaxy with a patchy, dusty disk and arms that are flaky or not visible at all.
“This Hubble image shows well why NGC 2090 earned that description, but its spiral arms do appear among the dust as winding lanes of light,” the astronomers said.
“NGC 2090 is a galaxy still full of activity, with clusters of star formation at various stages of evolution spread across the disk.”
“Examining star formation and the movement of matter in galaxies was the motivation for these Hubble observations, taken in October of this year.”
“Likewise Hubble’s partner in space astronomy, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, has also spied on this galaxy to add infrared data to this overall picture of galaxy evolution.”
Source : Breaking Science News