The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacularly detailed image of a spiral galaxy called NGC 4051.
This Hubble image shows the intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 4051. An emission-line galaxy known as SDSS J120312.35+443045.1 is visible as the bright smudge to the lower middle of the image, beneath the sweeping arm of NGC 4051. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Four 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 / D. Crenshaw & O. Fox.
NGC 4051 is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Ursa Major.
It was discovered on February 6, 1788 by the British astronomer William Herschel.
Otherwise known as LEDA 38068, UGC 7030 and IRAS 12005+4448, NGC 4051 lies about 45 million light-years from Earth.
The galaxy sits in the southern part of a cluster of galaxies known as the Ursa Major Cluster.
This cluster is especially rich in spirals such as NGC 4051, and is a subset of the larger Virgo Supercluster, which also houses our Milky Way Galaxy.
NGC 4051 has hosted multiple supernovae in the past four decades.
The first was spotted in 1983 (SN 1983I), the second in 2003 (SN 2003ie), and the most recent in 2010 (SN 2010br).
These explosive events were seen scattered throughout the center and spiral arms of NGC 4051.
SN 1983I and SN 2010br were both categorized as Type Ic supernovae.
This type of stellar explosion is produced by the core collapse of a massive star that has lost its outer layer of hydrogen and helium, either via winds or by mass transfer to a companion.
Because of this, Type Ic — and also Type Ib — supernovae are sometimes referred to as stripped core-collapse supernovae.
