Hubble Space Telescope turns 34 and shows collection of galaxies | News

2024-04-18 15:00:34

This April 25, NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 34th birthday with a stunning observation of an unusually tight-knit collection of five galaxies called The Hickson Compact Group 40.

(like a lens). Somehow these galaxies intersected in their evolution to create an exceptionally populated and eclectic array of galaxies.

Caught in a quiet gravitational dance, the entire cluster is so packed that it can fit into a region of space less than twice the diameter of our stellar disk.

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Although such enveloping galaxy groupings can be found at the heart of huge clusters, these galaxies are remarkably isolated in their own part of the universe, in the direction of the constellation Hydra.

A possible explanation for this formation is that there is lots of dark matter (an unknown and invisible form of matter) associated with these galaxies. If they get close, the dark matter can form a large cloud around which galaxies orbit. As they pass through dark matter, they experience a drag force due to their gravitational effects. This slows their motion and causes the galaxies to lose energy, causing them to clump together.

Therefore, this snapshot captures the galaxies at a very special moment in their lives. In regarding a billion years, they will collide and merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy.

X-ray observations show that the galaxies have interacted gravitationally due to the presence of a large amount of hot gas between them. Infrared observations reveal clues regarding rate of new star formation Although more than 100 of these compact groups of galaxies have been cataloged in sky surveys dating back decades. Hickson Compact Group 40 is one of the most densely populated.

Observations suggest that these groups may have been more numerous in the early universe and that they provided fuel for food black holesknown as quasars, whose light from falling superheated material shone out into space.

Studying the details of galaxies in close groups like this helps scientists astronomers determine when and where galaxies clusteredand what they were put together with.

“I remember seeing this in a sky survey and saying, ‘Wow, look at that!'” said Paul Hickson of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. “All I used at the time was a large plastic ruler and a magnifying glass as I looked at the studio impressions from the sky.” He rediscovered the group while flipping through a collection of peculiar galaxies first published by Halton Arp in 1966.

Hubble was launched into Earth orbit by NASA astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery on 25 April 1990. He the telescope has taken 1.5 million observations of approximately 50,000 celestial targets to date. This treasure trove of knowledge regarding the universe is stored with public access in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

The unique properties of Hubble observing visible and ultraviolet light is a critical science complement to infrared light observations from the recently launched Webb Space Telescope, which will begin science observations this summer.

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