NGC 2903 spotted by Hubble Telescope (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Ho et al)The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a “stunning spiral galaxy” located about 30 million light-years away from the earth in the constellation of Leo. The spiral galaxy — named as NGC 2903 — is similar to our own Milky Way galaxy.
According to a statement issued by NASA and the European Space Agency, “The image from Hubble frames a perfect spiral specimen.” The image will help researchers understand more about supermassive black holes that sit at the cores of large galaxies.
Hubble obtained the new image as it studied this galaxy as part of a survey of the central regions of roughly 145 nearby disk galaxies that are relatively near Earth. The image is expected to give scientists an insight between the relationship of a black hole and the rugby-ball-shaped bulge of stars, gas and dust at the galaxy’s centre.
The same kind of bulge of stars and gas can be seen in this image. The new picture shows a dusty orange environment with purple stars or clusters of stars amidst glowing dust trails.
Hubble telescope is a large telescope in space, launched by NASA in 1990. Weighing as much as two adult elephants, the telescope is as long as a large school bus. The telescope makes one orbit around Earth every 95 minutes and it can spot stars and galaxies lights years away from the earth.
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According to NASA, Hubble is not the kind of telescope that you look through with your eye. It uses a digital camera to takes pictures like a cell phone. Then it uses radio waves to send the pictures through the air back to the earth. Also, since, the telescope is in space, it’s vision is not blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.
