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It's hard to imagine a more glorious galaxy than NGC 3982, a face-on spiral that's swirling like a pinwheel 68 million light-years away in the northern constellation Ursa Major. It's a classic target for high-powered telescopes. This picture of the galaxy, released today by the Hubble Heritage team, was assembled from near-infrared and visible-light data captured by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 between 2000 and 2009.
The colors have been adjusted to emphasize star-forming regions, rich in hydrogen gas (in pink), as well as hot young stars (in blue). Older stars are concentrated in the galaxy's white-yellow nucleus. This earlier rendering from Hubble shows the pinwheel in natural colors.
NGC 3982 is more than just a pretty face: Observations of a special kind of star inside the galaxy, known as a Cepheid variable, were used to fine-tune astronomers' best estimates of the Hubble constant -- a number that describes the universe's expansion rate. For what it's worth, the current value of the Hubble constant is judged to be somewhere around 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec. But don't worry: There won't be a quiz.
More about galaxies, cosmology and Hubble:
- Measuring the universe
- Interactive: Hubble's long view
- Galaxy may reveal clues about Milky Way
- Double Hubble: The inside story of a dying star
- Slideshow: Hubble's greatest hits
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
beautiful it is.
Here is the question
Are Galaxies like a fire work pinwheel tossing things out or like a hurricane puling things in?
if the older stars are in the center then it pulling things in,
Very strange
I would be happier if it were the other way, that would suggest something spitting out hot matter.
The other way it is pulling stuff in from no where.
It would be nice t see a 4 billion year animation
Yes.
Not to be flippant, but that's the short and accurate answer to your question. When a massive galaxy ages to the point where it takes on the gorgeous spiral form we see here, it is due to the constantly battling forces of conservation of momentum, centrifugal and centripetal (inward and outward) forces, as well as something called density waves, which is a relatively new theory to help explain how a spiral galaxy doesn't just spin itself up into a tight ball.
dony forget most spiral galaxies have super massive black holes in their center.
I delight to imagine that we came from such a stellar experience!
Stupid question: What is the in the center of the pinwheel that glows so bright?
Nothing more than a higher concentration of stars and glowing gases, Grumpy. In fact, it's not actually glowing brighter, intrinsically...it's just that the matter at a galaxy's central bulge is many times more dense that in the arms, at at this distance, creates a dramatic visual contrast.
Typically, there are massive black holes in the centers of galaxies.
Be careful how the word "pinwheel" is used to describe a face-on spiral like NGC 3982, as there is another galaxy, Messier 101 (or NGC 5457, and also a member of the same group of galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major that NGC 3982 belongs to), which has been given the common name of "Pinwheel Galaxy". Don't confuse them! :)
I believe the centers of galaxies look brighter for two reasons. There are literally more stars per volume at the bulge as opposed to outer fringes. Also, higher concentrations of gas in the region will diffuse the light more.
The gas can be likened to a street light on a foggy night. Hope this helps.
Great info. Thanks.
Looks like the beginning of FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has something to do with the supermassive black hole that is almost certainly at the center of the galaxy, but beyond that I can't say with any degree of certainty. Our own galaxy has a similar bright spot composed of gases and intense star formation.
Tiz
Thanks very much
Ya a firework pinwheel works from the outside in But something like an out of control rock motor that is spinning will also make a pattern that looks like a Galaxy
Again thanks
Kind of hard to think of all the forces going on in at one time Not a simple picture
All i want to know is, how old is this light that we are seeing from this pinwheel.
As the story states, best-guess estimates (and they're ALL estimates) is that NGC 3982 is about 68 million light-years distant. That would mean that photons emanating from that galaxy have taken about 68 million years to reach us on Earth. You could generally prescribe that "age" to the light.
How many civilizations are in this photo? :P (Wish I knew that answer, seriously.)
To me....black holes are self-defeating...."supposedly" if black holes were real, the whole universe would have had time to assimilate itself eventually (billions of years) into one huge black hole, where everything would be one massive black (light can't escape) ball. Then what? Nope...to me, the theory of black holes just doesn't "compute. I guess we will only understand the fact that the universe is endless, after we die, and become part of it. Our primitive little minds cannot comprehend that the universe always was, and always will be...but, in time, we shall all find out.............................
Black holes exist, we have proof of them, we have pictures of their effects, the one aspect that you are leaving out is the distance in space is vast, and the distance between black holes is vast. Black holes dont just suck everything into them, their gravity is powerful but the farther away you get from them the less thier gravity is.
The event horizon is where matter cannot escape a black holes gravity, this is why black holes are black, you can only see them when they are feeding (hense our astro photo proof in various visual light spectrums) so based on that consept black holes do not just suck up all matter and each other (though black holes collisions do happen) their gravity does affect galaxies though (such as our own galaxy and the super massive black hole)
But In one aspect you are correct that eventually if when the Universe dies ( I believe it will a deep freeze) all the stars will burn out, explode ect and when all the red dwarfs finally die out all that will be left is dead stars, planets and black holes moving in space eventually swallowing everything (unless they too evaporate accourding to Hawkings radiation theory. Who knows what will come after that.
Jerry,
Blackholes are real. They have been discovered, proven, and studied. This is like saying the Sun is not real.
Check out a show called "The Universe" , you can probably watch old episodes on hulu.com , one of my favorite shows!
Pirate C,
I would say another "Big Bang"
The "deep freeze" is nothing but the entropy yet at another cosmic limit. So, if one takes the von Neumann entropy and use a time evolution operator of the system, i.e. U, hence:
U(t) = exp (-iHt/Planks Reduced Constant)
where H is the Hamiltonian of the system. This associates the reversibility of a process with its resulting entropy change, i.e. a process is reversible if, and only if, it leaves the entropy of the system invariant.
This equation is telling us that the universe could be going on indefinitely in cycles.
What about there being more than one big bang? Say another one just 1 day later then the one we are in.
would it not be in a different time event and we cannot see it of feel it as it is on a different level?
If that is so this universe will end at some time But that will not matter as there would be many more universes some where in time