NASA has released a beautiful photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of 2XMM J143450.5+033843, a galaxy that lurks within the Virgo constellation some 400 million light-years from Earth.
This image shows the galaxy 2XMM J143450.5+033843, which lies in the constellation Virgo, some 400 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
2XMM J143450.5+033843 is a Seyfert galaxy that is dominated by something known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) — its core is thought to contain a supermassive black hole that is emitting huge amounts of radiation, pouring energetic X-rays out into the Universe.
The name of this galaxy may seem like a random jumble of numbers and letters, but like all galactic epithets it has a distinct meaning.
2XMM J143450.5+033843 was detected and observed as part of the second X-ray sky survey performed by ESA’s XMM-Newton Observatory.
Its celestial coordinates form the rest of the bulky name, following the ‘J:’ a right ascension value of 14h 34m 50.5s (this can be likened to terrestrial longitude), and a declination of +03d 38m 43s (this can be likened to terrestrial latitude).
The other fuzzy object in the frame was named in the same way — it is a bright galaxy named 2XMM J143448.3+033749.
The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the near-infrared and optical parts of the spectrum.
It is based on data obtained through two filters: a blue filter (F435W) and a near-infrared filter (F814W).
The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
