The Hubble Space Telescope continues exploring deep space, snapping photographs of unusual or fascinating phenomena that occur. One of its recent findings is a multi-armed galaxy, located millions of light-years away from Earth.
NASA has released an image of a galaxy located 95 million light years away. This galaxy is named as NGC 2273. It claims that the NGC 2273, hosts an inner ring and two outer “pseudorings”. NASA explains that this kind of morphology is known as ‘multiring’ structure which makes NGC 2273 rare and distinct.
At first glance, the image looks to be a simple spiral galaxy, with two pinwheeling arms emerging from a central bar of stars and material that cuts through the galactic center. In fact, there are rings within these spiral arms, too: spirals within a spiral.
“Rings are created when a galaxy’s spiral arms appear to loop around to nearly close upon one another, combined with a trick of cosmic perspective. NGC 2273’s two pseudorings are formed by two swirling sets of spiral arms coming together, and the inner ring by two arcing structures nearer to the galactic center, which seem to connect in a similar way”, NASA explains.
“Besides it’s multiring structure, the galaxy is also a Seyfert galaxy. In fact, center of a galaxy such as this is powered by a supermassive black hole, and can glow brightly enough to outshine an entire galaxy like the Milky Way.”
-Subo
Credits- NASA, ESA
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