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Scientists have envisioned the spiral galaxy NGC 2903 as part of a study to understand supermassive black holes.
(Image: © ESA / Hubble and NASA, L. Ho et al.)
NASA and the European Space Agency long-time The Hubble Space Telescope just produced an incredible close-up of a spiral galaxy, similar to our own Milky Way. The image will help researchers better understand supermassive black holes in large galaxies.
The new image shows a dusty environment of orange-red color dotted with purple stars, shining amidst black dust trails. This spiral galaxy is called NGC 2903 and is located about 30 million light years from Earth, in the constellation Leo. (A light year is the distance traveled by light over a year, or 6,000 billion kilometers). While 30 million light years away, it is very far from home, on a cosmic scale, going very far in our own neighborhood.
Hubble got this new image by studying the central regions of about 145 disk galaxies relatively close to Earth, say officials from the European Space Agency. said in a statement. The new work aims to help astronomers better understand the supermassive black holes that lie at the center of many galaxies, including our own barred spiral galaxy. The researchers also want to know more about the relationship between these black holes and the bumps of dust, gas and stars that typically congregate near centers of galaxies.
Hubble launched on a space shuttle flight in 1990 Since then, he has completed several astronaut service missions, the last of which in 2009. The telescope is expected to continue to operate in the 2020s, and a successor observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in 2021.
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