NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817.
This image shows the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817, which lies in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 370 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
LEDA 58817 is located in the equatorial constellation Ophiuchus, approximately 370 million light-years away.
Also known as IRAS 16399-0937 and 2MASX J16424018-0943192, the galaxy has a far more exciting classification than most — it is a megamaser.
Megamasers are intensely bright, around 100 million times brighter than the masers found in galaxies like our Milky Way Galaxy.
The entire galaxy essentially acts as an astronomical laser that beams out microwave emission rather than visible light.
This Hubble image belies the galaxy’s energetic nature, instead painting it as a beautiful and serene cosmic rosebud.
The image is made up of observations from two of Hubble’s instruments — the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum.
NICMOS’s sensitivity, resolution, and field of view gave astronomers the unique opportunity to observe the structure of LEDA 58817 in detail.
They found that the galaxy hosts a double nucleus — the galaxy’s core is thought to be formed of two separate cores in the process of merging.
The two components, named IRAS 16399N and IRAS 16399S for the northern and southern parts respectively, sit over 11,000 light-years apart.
However, they are both buried deep within the same swirl of cosmic gas and dust and are interacting, giving the galaxy its peculiar structure.
The nuclei are very different. IRAS 16399S appears to be a starburst region, where new stars are forming at an incredible rate.
IRAS 16399N, however, is something known as a LINER nucleus (Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Region), which is a region whose emission mostly stems from weakly-ionized or neutral atoms of particular gases.
The northern nucleus also hosts a black hole with some 100 million times the mass of the Sun.
