The FORS2 instrument captures amazing details of the spiral galaxy NGC 3981

This gorgeous picture shows the resplendent spiral galaxy NGC 3981 hanging in the black of space ink. This galaxy, which is in the constellation Crater (the Cup), was imaged in May 2018 using the FOcal Reducer instrument and low dispersion spectrograph 2 – FORS2) on Very Large Telescope – VLT (ESO) .

FORS2 is mounted on Unit Telescope 1 (Antu) of the VLT at the Paranal Observatory of ESO in Chile. Among the many state-of-the-art instruments mounted on the VLT's four unitary telescopes, FORS2 stands out for its extreme versatility. This "Swiss army knife" of an instrument is able to study a variety of astronomical objects in different ways, while being able to produce beautiful images like this one.

FORS2's sensitive gaze revealed the spiral arms of NGC 3981, dotted with vast swirls of dust and star-forming regions, as well as a prominent disc of hot young stars. The galaxy is tilted towards Earth, allowing astronomers to directly observe the heart of this galaxy and observe its bright center, a highly energetic region containing a supermassive black hole. The peripheral spiral structure of NGC 3981, some of which seems to have been extended to the outside of the galaxy, is probably presented, probably due to the gravitational influence of a past galactic encounter.

NGC 3981 certainly has many galactic neighbors. Located about 65 million light-years away from Earth, the galaxy is part of the NGC 4038 group, which also contains well-known interacting antenna galaxies. This group is part of the largest crater cloud, which is itself a smaller component of the Virgo supercluster, the titanic collection of galaxies that hosts our own galaxy of the Milky Way.

NGC 3981 is not the only interesting feature captured in this image. In addition to several leading stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, FORS2 also captured a thug asteroid that was spinning across the sky, visible as the faint line up the image. This particular asteroid unintentionally illustrated the process used to create astronomical images, the three different exposures constituting this image being displayed in the blue, green and red sections of the asteroid path.

This image was taken as part of ESO's Cosmic Gems program, an awareness initiative aimed at producing interesting, intriguing or visually appealing images of objects using ESO telescopes, educational and public awareness purposes. The program uses telescope time which can not be used for scientific observations. If the collected data could be useful for future scientific purposes, these observations are recorded and made available to astronomers via the ESO's scientific archives.

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