Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a distant barred spiral galaxy called NGC 986.
This image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 986. Image credit: NASA / ESA.
NGC 986 (also known as Dunlop 519) was discovered in 1828 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop.
It is a bright, 11th-magnitude spiral galaxy (type SBab) located in the southern constellation of Fornax, 56 million light-years away.
Its golden center and barred swirling arms are clearly visible in this new image captured by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.
Barred spiral galaxies are spiral galaxies with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars.
NGC 986 has the characteristic S-shaped structure of this type of galactic morphology.
Young blue stars can be seen dotted amongst the NGC 986’s arms and the core of the galaxy is also aglow with star formation.
To the top right of the image the stars appear a little fuzzy.
This is because a gap in the Hubble data was filled in with data from ground-based telescopes. Although the view one see in this filled in patch is accurate, the resolution of the stars is no match for Hubble’s clear depiction of the spiral galaxy.
