Spiral Galaxy NGC 1559 in Reticulum | Hubble Space Telescope

Spiral Galaxy NGC 1559 in Reticulum | Hubble Space Telescope

The galaxy featured here is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Reticulum near the Large Magellanic Cloud at approximately 35 million light-years from Earth. The brilliant light captured in this image offers a wealth of information. This picture is composed of ten images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, each filtered to collect light from a specific wavelength or range of wavelengths. It spans Hubble’s sensitivity to light, from ultraviolet around 275 nanometers through blue, green and red to near-infrared at 1600 nanometers. This allows information about many astrophysical processes in the galaxy to be recorded. A notable example is the red 656-nanometer filter used here. Hydrogen atoms that are ionized can emit light at this particular wavelength, called H-alpha emission.

New stars forming in a molecular cloud, made mostly of hydrogen gas, emit copious amounts of ultraviolet light that is absorbed by the cloud. This becomes ionized causing it to glow with H-alpha light. Therefore, filtering to detect only this light provides a reliable means to detect areas of star formation (called H II regions), shown in this image by bright red and pink colors of the blossoming patches filling NGC 1559’s spiral arms.

These ten images come from six different observing programs with Hubble, running from 2009 all the way up to the present year. These programs were led by teams of astronomers studying ionized gas and star formation, following up on a supernova, and tracking variable stars as a contribution to calculating the Hubble constant.

Image Description: A spiral galaxy, tilted at an angle, with irregularly-shaped arms. It appears large and close-up. The center glows in a yellowish color, while the disc around it is a bluer color, due to light from older and newer stars. Dark reddish threads of dust cover the galaxy, and there are many large, shining pink spots in the disc where stars are forming.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, W. Yuan, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, A. Riess, K. Takáts, D. de Martin & M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

Release Date: Sept. 16, 2024

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