The Hubble team has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the bright spiral galaxy NGC 4707.
This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4707, which lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, about 22 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
NGC 4707 was discovered on April 26, 1789 by Sir William Herschel, a British astronomer and composer of German origin.
Over two centuries later, Hubble is able to view the same galaxy in far greater detail than Herschel could, allowing us to appreciate the intricacies and characteristics of NGC 4707 as never before.
Herschel himself reportedly described NGC 4707 as a ‘small, stellar’ galaxy; while it is classified as a spiral galaxy, its overall shape, center, and spiral arms are very loose and undefined, and its central bulge is either very small or non-existent.
It instead appears as a rough sprinkling of stars and bright flashes of blue on a dark canvas, as if a pointillist painter had dotted the cosmos with small pinpricks of bright paint.
The blue smudges seen across the frame highlight regions of recent or ongoing star formation, with newborn stars glowing in bright, intense shades of cyan and turquoise.
Also known as DDO 150, LEDA 43255 and UGC 7971, NGC 4707 is located in the constellation Canes Venatici and is approximately 22 million light-years from Earth.
This striking image of NGC 4707 comprises observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), one of a handful of high-resolution instruments currently aboard the telescope.
It is based on data obtained through two filters: 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.
