NASA Hubble Space Telescope took a photo of the stunning galaxy known as the "Grand Design Spiral."
NGC 3631 was the focus of the Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Survey telescopes, which took a galactic picture of the galaxy with spiral arms teeming with star formation.
The blue hue symbolizes visible blue wavelengths. The orange color highlights infrared or heat-rich regions that would otherwise be difficult to notice due to dust.
This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, located some 53 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major.
NASA Hubble Space Telescope Shares Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
NASA released a statement regarding the new image on May 26.
"Star formation in spirals is similar to a traffic jam on the interstate," the government agency said.
Slower-moving matter in the spiral's disk causes a bottleneck, concentrating star-forming gas and dust in the inner half of their spiral arms, similar to automobiles on the highway.
According to NASA, the traffic jam of matter can become so intense that it gravitationally collapses, forming new stars that seem dazzling blue-white in the picture.
NGC 3631 is located 53 million light-years away from Earth in Ursa Major's constellation. It's one slew of galaxies that Hubble officials have been highlighting in recent weeks.
According to NASA, Hubble's galactic study involves learning about dark matter concentrations. It can provide insights into the universe's general structure and galaxy collisions, formation events, and kinds.
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"From supermassive black holes at galactic centers to giant bursts of star formation to titanic collisions between galaxies, these discoveries allow astronomers to probe the current properties of galaxies as well as examine how they formed and developed over time," NASA stated.
JWST to Join Hubble Soon
Hubble's 32 years of research in orbit will soon be joined by a deep-space partner Space.com reported.
At Lagrange 2, the James Webb Space Telescope is completing its commissioning, extending Hubble's work even further into the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope is NASA's replacement for the famed Hubble Space Telescope. It was launched on Dec. 25, 2021, to study the earliest stars and peer further back into the history of the cosmos than ever before.
The Webb Space Telescope is presently viewing Lagrange point 2 at its current location. It is now the world's largest and most powerful space telescope.
"Galaxies show us how the matter in the universe is organized on large scales. In order to understand the nature and history of the universe, scientists study how the matter is currently organized and how that organization has changed throughout cosmic time," NASA officials wrote.
Webb will concentrate on our universe's oldest galaxies. Some of the Webb Cycle 1 investigations will focus on star formation, early galaxies with "low metallicity" (rich in hydrogen and helium), dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and the famed neighboring Andromeda Galaxy (M31) system of satellite galaxies.
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