This incredible image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the routing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral nebula 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At very first look, the fragile tracery of brilliant spiral arms and dark dust lanes looks like numerous other spiral nebula. A closer appearance exposes an oddly uneven galaxy formed by gravitational interaction and extreme star development. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Sell, Acknowledgement: L. Shatz
This incredible image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the routing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral nebula 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At very first look, the fragile tracery of brilliant spiral arms and dark dust lanes looks like numerous other spiral nebula. A closer appearance exposes an oddly uneven galaxy formed by gravitational interaction and extreme star development.
This striking image showcases the abnormally bent look of NGC 2276, a look brought on by 2 various astrophysical interactions — one with the superheated gas pervading galaxy clusters, and one with a neighboring galactic next-door neighbor.
The interaction of NGC 2276 with the intracluster medium — the superheated gas lying in between the galaxies in galaxy clusters — has actually sparked a burst of star development along one edge of the galaxy. This wave of star development shows up as the brilliant, blue-tinged radiance of freshly formed huge stars towards the left side of this image, and offers the galaxy an oddly uneven look. NGC 2276’s current burst of star development is likewise connected to the look of more unique occupants — great voids and neutron stars in double stars.
This image reveals a wide-field view of NGC 2276, a spiral nebula 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At very first look, the fragile tracery of brilliant spiral arms and dark dust lanes looks like numerous other spiral nebula. A closer appearance exposes an oddly uneven galaxy formed by gravitational interaction and extreme star development. Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
On the opposite of the galaxy from this burst of brand-new stars, the gravitational tourist attraction of a smaller sized buddy is pulling the external edges of NGC 2276 out of shape. This interaction with the little lens-shaped galaxy NGC 2300 has actually misshaped the outer spiral arms of NGC 2276, providing the misconception that the bigger galaxy is orientated face-on to Earth.[1] NGC 2276 and its disruptive buddy NGC 2300 can both be seen in the accompanying image, which reveals a larger view of the engaging galaxies.
NGC 2276 is by no suggests the only galaxy with a weird look. The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies — a brochure of uncommon galaxies released in 1966 — includes a menagerie of strange and fantastic galaxies, consisting of incredible galaxy mergers, ring-shaped galaxies, and other stellar curiosity. As befits an abnormally bent galaxy, NGC 2276 has the difference of being noted in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies two times — when for its uneven spiral arms and when for its interaction with its smaller sized next-door neighbor NGC 2300.
Notes
- The real positioning of NGC 2276 can be presumed from the position of its brilliantly radiant galactic core, which is balanced out from the distorted spiral arms.
