![]() Even in the darkest skies I’ve ever seen, I’ve clearly seen the Milky Way, and countless stars with just barely discernible colors, but still, I do not see anything close to what Hubble sees. After all, when I step outside at night and look up, I see a mostly dark (or more likely light polluted) sky peppered with pinpoints of light. I remember seeing images like the now iconic Eagle Nebula as I was beginning my own journey into astrophysics and wondering how these images could possibly be real. Three decades is a long time, it covers the span of an entire generation a generation whose perception of what the universe looks like is inextricably linked to Hubble. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and is now approaching thirty-one years in orbit. In this post, we’ll take a brief look at the history of astrophotography in order to provide a historical context to Hubble. This series of posts is dedicated to the scrutiny of Hubble imagery and a broader discussion of the veracity of astronomical imagery. “We study galaxies like NGC 4654 to examine the connection between young stars and the cold gas from which they form.TLDR: Yes, Hubble images are real. “The gravity of NGC 4639 stripped NGC 4654’s gas along its edge, limiting star formation in that region and causing the asymmetrical distribution of the galaxy’s stars.” “NGC 4654 also had an interaction with the companion galaxy NGC 4639 about 500 million years ago.” “However, NGC 4654 has star formation rates consistent with other galaxies of its size.” “Most galaxies that experienced ram pressure stripping hold very little cold gas, halting the galaxy’s ability to form new stars, since stars generate from dense gas,” they said. “This process produced a long, thin tail of hydrogen gas on the galaxy’s southeastern side.” ![]() |This pressure feels like a gust of wind - think of a biker feeling wind even on a still day - that strips NGC 4654 of its gas.” “NGC 4654 may be experiencing a process called ram pressure stripping, where the gravitational pull of the Virgo Cluster puts pressure on NGC 4654 as it moves through a superheated plasma made largely of hydrogen called the intracluster medium.” “NGC 4654 is one of many Virgo Cluster galaxies that have an asymmetric distribution of stars and of neutral hydrogen gas,” the astronomers said. NGC 4654 is a member of the Virgo Cluster, a group of approximately 1,300 - and possibly up to 2,000 - galaxies. “The galaxy has a bright center and is labeled intermediate because it has characteristics of both unbarred and barred spirals.” “NGC 4654 is just north of the celestial equator, making it visible from the northern hemisphere and most of the southern hemisphere,” the Hubble astronomers said. NGC 3923 was first discovered by the German-British astronomer William Herschel on April 12, 1784. NGC 4654 lies around 55 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo.Īlso known IC 3708 or LEDA 42857, this galaxy has a diameter of about 70,000 light-years. Lee, Space Telescope Science Institute / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America. This Hubble image shows NGC 4654, a intermediate spiral galaxy some 55 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo.
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