The magnificent galaxy featured in this stunning Hubble weekly image is NGC 1559. It is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Reticuli near the Large Magellanic Cloud, but is much farther away, about 35 million light-years away. Hubble last visited this object in 2018. The brilliant light captured in this image provides a wealth of information that is available to scientists and the public alike thanks to Hubble.


This detailed image of NGC 1559 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy's active star-forming regions through a special filter. Source: ESA/Hubble and NASA, F. Belfiore, W. Yuan, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST team, A. Riess, K. Takáts, D. deMartin and M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

The image is made up of up to ten different photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, each filtered to collect light at a specific wavelength or range of wavelengths. It spans Hubble's sensitivity to light, from ultraviolet at about 275 nanometers, through blue, green and red, to near-infrared at 1,600 nanometers. This makes it possible to record information on many different astrophysical processes in the Milky Way: the red 656-nanometer filter used here is a notable example. Ionized hydrogen atoms can emit light of this specific wavelength, called H-alpha emission.

New stars formed in molecular clouds are composed mainly of hydrogen gas, and they emit large amounts of ultraviolet light, which is absorbed by the molecular cloud but ionizes the molecular cloud, thereby emitting H-alpha light. Therefore, filtering only this light is a reliable way to detect star-forming regions, known as HII regions.

The ten images are from Hubble's six different observing programs, running from 2009 to this year. These programs are led by teams of astronomers from around the world, with scientific goals ranging from studying ionized gas and star formation, to tracking supernovae, to tracking variable stars and contributing to the calculation of the Hubble constant.

All of these observational data are preserved in the Hubble archive and are available to anyone, not only for new scientific research but also to produce spectacular images like this one of NGC 1559, a reminder of the incredible opportunities the Hubble Space Telescope has provided and continues to provide.

This photo shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1559 observed by the James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxy has a visible central region with distinct open patterns in its loosely wound spiral arms. NGC 1559 is located approximately 35 million light-years away in the rarely observed southern constellation The Reticulum. Image source: ESA/Webb, NASA&CSA, A.Leroy, J.Lee and PHANGS team

In addition to Hubble's observations, astronomers are using the NASA/ESA/James Webb Space Telescope to conduct a more in-depth study of the galaxy. This Webb Telescope image (above) shows the galaxy in near- and mid-infrared light.

Compiled from /ScitechDaily