NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is the source of some of the most fascinating and stunning images of space available on the Internet. The NASA Hubble Telescope posted a sparkling image to its social media handle about a new galaxy that is a hotbed for star formation in space.
This galaxy is millions of light-years from Earth, but Hubble gave us a glimpse of its beauty. Hubble referred to this new galaxy as a “star factory” because it produces billions of star clusters in space! NGC 1569 is the name of this dwarf galaxy, and the image shared by NASA is dotted with twinkling stars and celestial bodies.
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“This galaxy had a sudden onset of star birth about 25 million years ago, which subsided around the time the very first human ancestors appeared on Earth,” NASA wrote in a statement about the image.
A glittering galaxy
This one #HubbleClassic shows a hotbed of powerful star birth called NGC 1569. The galaxy’s “star factories” are producing bright blue star clusters!
NGC 1569 is ~7 million light-years away: pic.twitter.com/5fI02e56Li
— Hubble (@NASAHubble) Apr 5, 2022
The image’s galactic features show bubble-like structures made of hydrogen gas. According to NASA, this gas glows when violently hit by wind, radiation from young stars and supernova shocks.
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According to the agency, the galaxy’s first supernovae exploded about 20-25 million years ago, when the most massive stars were reaching the end of their lives. NGC 1569 is home to two young and massive star clusters, as well as a slew of smaller ones, according to Hubble observations.
The two young clusters are notably similar to those in the Milky Way, while the smaller ones are similar to lower-mass clusters found all over our galaxy. The galaxy produced stars 20 million years after the starburst began, according to a team of European scientists who studied it in detail in 2004.
Cover Image: Hubble/Twitter