The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a detailed image of a spectacular part of the spiral galaxy called NGC 5921.
This image shows NGC 5921, a barred spiral galaxy some 78 million light-years away in the constellation of Serpens. This picture was created from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). One optical and two infrared filter 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 / J. Walsh / R. Colombari.
NGC 5921 is located approximately 78 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Serpens.
“Serpens is the only one of the 88 modern constellations to consist of two unconnected regions: Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda,” Hubble astronomers said.
“These two regions — whose names mean the Serpent’s Head and the Serpent’s Tail, respectively — are separated by Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.”
NGC 5921 was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on May 1, 1786.
Otherwise known as IRAS 15194+0514, LEDA 54849 or UGC 9824, it is classified as a barred spiral galaxy.
“Roughly half of all spiral galaxies are thought to contain bars, and these bars affect their parent galaxies by fuelling star formation and affecting the motion of stars and interstellar gas,” the researchers said.
The scientific study behind this new image of NGC 5921 was also split into two parts — observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and observations from the ground-based Gemini Observatory.
“These two observatories joined forces to better understand the relationship between galaxies like NGC 5921 and the supermassive black holes they contain,” the scientists said.
“Hubble’s contribution to the study was to determine the masses of stars in the galaxies and also to take measurements that help calibrate the observations from Gemini.”
“Together, the Hubble and Gemini observations provided us with a census of nearby supermassive black holes in a diverse variety of galaxies.”
