Fortunately for us, galaxies are everywhere across the Universe, meaning that there’s no telling if they’ll ever run out of presenting scientists new stuff to explore. The Hubble Space Telescope that’s operated by NASA and the European Space Agency is still pretty active, and a recent astronomical task proves it.
Mashable.com writes about how Hubble captured an astonishing photo of a galaxy that’s being illuminated by a black hole. As we know very well from astronomers, they believe that a supermassive black hole is located at the center of each galaxy, as it happens with our Milky Way.
Meet NGC 3254
The amazing galaxy in question is NGC 3254, a spiral galaxy from the constellation Leo Minor that was discovered in 1785 by the astronomer William Herschel. The galaxy has a particularly luminescent core that emits incredible amounts of energy.
NASA revealed the NGC 3254 galaxy on its website:
If you’re also fascinated by the bright blue dot from the top center of the image, you’re not the only one! The object is a supernova, meaning a star captured during its explosion. The event happened about 118 million years ago, but we have the privilege of seeing it now due to the fact that light itself needs a lot of time to travel from one galaxy to another.
Leo Minor is a small constellation located in the northern celestial hemisphere. The constellation also lies between Leo to the south and Ursa Major to the north. In Leo Minor, there are 37 stars brighter than magnitude 6.5, and the constellation itself was designated by Johannes Hevelius in 1687. He outlined ten constellations in his star atlas named “Firmamentum Sobiescianum,” and he included 18 objects in the accompanying Catalogus Stellarum Fixarum.
