This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy known as NGC 278.
This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 278, which lies in the northern constellation Cassiopeia, about 41.7 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S. Smartt, Queen’s University Belfast.
NGC 278 is an 11.5-magnitude spiral galaxy in the northern constellation Cassiopeia.
Also known as LEDA 3051 and UGC 528, NGC 278 is approximately 41.7 million light-years away.
While this galaxy may look serene, it is anything but. The galaxy is currently undergoing an immense burst of star formation.
This flurry of activity is shown by the blue-hued knots speckling NGC 278’s spiral arms, each of which marks a clump of hot infant stars.
However, NGC 278’s star formation is somewhat unusual. It does not extend to the galaxy’s outer edges, but is only taking place within an inner ring approximately 6,500 light-years across.
This two-tiered structure is visible in this Hubble image — while the galaxy’s center is bright, its extremities are much darker.
This odd configuration is thought to have been caused by a merger with a smaller galaxy — while the turbulent event ignited the center of NGC 278, the dusty remains of the small snack then dispersed into the galaxy’s outer regions.
Whatever the cause, such a ring of star formation, called a nuclear ring, is extremely unusual in galaxies without a bar at their center, making NGC 278 a very intriguing sight.
This color image of NGC 278 is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum.
It is based on data obtained through three filters: the blue filter F450W, the broad V-band filter F606W and the near-infrared filter F814W.
The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
