Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a remarkable new view of the spiral galaxy NGC 4217.
This image shows the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4217. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / R. Schoofs.
NGC 4217 is an edge-on spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici, about 60 million light-years away.
The galaxy is a possible companion of the spiral galaxy Messier 106 (otherwise known as NGC 4258).
The most prominent feature of NGC 4217 is its dust lane of interstellar gas and dust obscuring the light of the galaxy.
The new image from Hubble shows dozens of dust structures some of which reach as far as 7,000 light-years away from the central plane.
Typically the structures have a length of about 1,000 light-years and are about 400 light-years in width.
Some of the dust filaments are round or irregular clouds, others are vertical columns, loop-like structures or vertical cones.
These structures can help scientists to identify the mechanisms responsible for the ejection of gas and dust from the galactic plane of spiral galaxies and reveal information on the transport of the interstellar medium to large distances away from galactic disks.
The properties of the observed dust structures in NGC 4217 suggest that the gas and dust were driven out of the mid-plane of the galaxy by powerful stellar winds resulting from supernovae.
