Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has taken a striking new image of the grand design spiral galaxy NGC 5248.
This Hubble image shows NGC 5248, a grand design spiral galaxy located some 42 million light-years away in the constellation of Boötes. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s WFC3 instrument. Six filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / F. Belfiore / J. Lee / PHANGS-HST Team.
NGC 5248 lies approximately 42 million light-years away in the constellation of Boötes.
Otherwise known as Caldwell 45, LEDA 48130, UGC 8616, IRAS 13353+0908 and TC 830, this spiral galaxy has a diameter of 95,000 light-years.
First discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on April 15, 1784, it is a member of the NGC 5248 group of galaxies.
NGC 5248 has an apparent magnitude of 10 and can be spotted using a small telescope, though it won’t appear very bright.
The galaxy is notable for its nuclear rings with ‘hot spots’ of starburst activity.
“NGC 5248 is one of the so-called ‘grand design’ spirals, with prominent spiral arms that reach from near the core out through the disk,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“It also has a faint bar structure in the center, between the inner ends of the spiral arms, which is not quite so obvious in this visible-light portrait from Hubble.”
“Features like these which break the rotational symmetry of a galaxy have a huge influence on how matter moves through it, and eventually its evolution through time.”
“They feed gas from a galaxy’s outer reaches to inner star-forming regions, and even to a galaxy’s central black hole where it can kick-start an active galactic nucleus.”
“These flows of gas have shaped NGC 5248 in a big way; it has many bright regions of intense star formation spread across its disk, and it is dominated by a population of young stars.”
“The galaxy even has two very active, ring-shaped starburst regions around its nucleus, filled with young clusters of stars.”
“These ‘nuclear rings’ are remarkable enough, but normally a nuclear ring tends to block gas from getting further into the core of a galaxy.”
“NGC 5248 having a second ring inside the first is a marker of just how forceful its flows of matter and energy are.”
“Its relatively nearby, highly visible starburst regions make the galaxy a target for professional and amateur astronomers alike.”
Source : Breaking Science News