NASA has released a dazzling image from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing a nearby spiral galaxy called NGC 4102.
Color composite image of the starburst spiral galaxy NGC 4102 obtained with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / S. Smartt, Queen’s University Belfast / Renaud Houdinet.
NGC 4102, also known as UGC 7096, is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major, about 55.4 million light-years away. It has an apparent magnitude of 11.2.
The galaxy contains a low-ionization nuclear emission-line (LINER) region, meaning that its nucleus emits particular types of radiation – specifically, emission from weakly-ionized or neutral atoms of certain elements.
Even in this sense, the galaxy is not special; around one third of all nearby galaxies are thought to be LINER galaxies.
Many LINERs, including NGC 4102, contain regions of star formation. This is thought to be intrinsically linked to their centers but just why, is still a mystery for astronomers – either the starbursts pour fuel inwards to fuel the LINERs, or this active central region triggers the starbursts.
NGC 4102 does indeed contain a starburst region towards its center, where stars are being created at a rate much more furious than in a normal galaxy.
This star formation is taking place within a small rotating disk, around 1,000 light-years in diameter and with a mass some 3 billion times the mass of our Sun.
This new image of NGC 4102 was taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope using different filters in visible and infrared light.
