NASA's Hubble Space Telescope marked its 21st anniversary by releasing a breathtaking image. The image captures the beauty of a cosmic event that showcases the telescope's powerful capabilities.
Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, selected an especially striking pair of interacting galaxies, known as Arp 273, to commemorate this milestone.
(Photo : NASA)
A Galactic Rose From the Past
This celestial portrait focuses on the larger spiral galaxy, UGC 1810. This galaxy's disk has been warped into a rose-like shape due to the gravitational pull of its smaller companion, UGC 1813, located just below it. The resulting image is both scientifically valuable and visually stunning.
This magnificent image is a composite created using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Data for this image was collected on December 17, 2010, using three separate filters encompassing a wide range of wavelengths.
These filters include the spectrum's ultraviolet, blue, and red portions, allowing the final image to reveal a rich array of details and colors.
Arp 273 is located in the constellation Andromeda, approximately 300 million light-years away from Earth. The interaction between UGC 1810 and UGC 1813 provides astronomers with an exceptional opportunity to study the effects of gravitational forces on galactic structures.
The distorted shape of UGC 1810, resembling a rose, directly results from these tidal interactions. The Hubble Space Telescope, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, has been orbiting Earth since its launch on April 24, 1990.
Hubble has captured some of the most detailed images of the universe, contributing immensely to our understanding of the cosmos.
NASA's Hubble New Image After Switching to One-Gyro Mode
It is worth noting that Hubble is already 34 years old. NASA released this image to relive one of the most stunning images Hubble has taken at a time when it was celebrating an important milestone.
With over three decades in space, Hubble's journey was not smooth sailing. It recently faced several weeks of downtime after one of its gyroscopes, a component crucial for the telescope's stability and orientation, malfunctioned.
However, all is well now for Hubble after it resumed operations on June 14. It recently revealed images after shifting to an alternative operational mode with only one gyro.
The newly captured image features NGC 1546, a nearby galaxy in the Dorado constellation. Its positioning offers a unique view, revealing dust lanes illuminated from behind by its core.
NASA explained that these dust lanes absorb light, giving them a rusty-brown color, while the core emits a yellowish glow due to older stars. Bright blue areas indicate active star formation, visible through the dust.
Additionally, several distant galaxies are seen, including a spiral galaxy adjacent to NGC 1546. Learn more about this new image here.
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