A fresh image recently captured by the Hubble Space Telescope exhibits a deep view of the eye of a galactic needle.

Space.com reported, "there's a mysterious X-ray source," as well as other unknown objects in this image of the Needle's Eye galaxy by Hubble.

Nicknamed the "spiral galaxy," the Needle's Eye, even though more officially called NGC 247 and Caldwell 62, NASA said earlier this month, the nickname is suitable given this galaxy is a dwarf spiral, making it a relatively small group of stars, compared to the Earth's own Milky Way.

This image from the Hubble Space telescope represents a hole on the other side of the galaxy, which NASA said is puzzling astronomers.

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Needle Galaxy
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ESO)
This Hubble image shows the central region of a spiral galaxy known as NGC 247. NGC 247 is a relatively small spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale).


Distant Galaxies

The space agency wrote in its report that there is a shortage of gas in that portion of the galaxy. This means that there is not much material which new stars have originated from.

NASA also reported that since the formation of stars has halted in this site, old, faint stars occupy the hole, a similar Sci-News report said.

Researchers still do not know how such a strange feature, although studies hint toward past gravitational interchanges with another galaxy. The said hole is not the sole mystery held by this galaxy.

Beneath the disk of the galaxy, one can spit a few tinier and distant galaxies outside the marker of the Needle's Eye of 11 million light-years, somewhat close distances to us in galactic terms.

However, learning about those distant galaxies is also something astronomers are attempting to do. According to NASA, bright red specifies areas of high-density gas and dust and robust formation of stars "rather close to the edge of the galaxy." More so, a bright foreground star also happens to be in the field of view.

Ultraluminous X-ray Source in the Heart of the Galaxy

Implanted in the heart of the galaxy is what's described as an ultraluminous X-ray source, although it is not clear where it came from.

In their report, the agency asked if they are stellar-mass black holes that gorge on extraordinarily large amounts of gas. Or, could they be long-sought "intermediate-mass" black holes many times more massive compared to their stellar counterparts, although smaller than the monster black holes in the centers of the majority of the galaxies.

Independent studies of galaxies that use other forms of light, such as X-rays with the Chandra X-ray Observatory of NASA, suggest that X-rays originate from the disk of an intermediate-mass black hole. However, more studies will be needed to determine what is going on.

The NGC 247 Galaxy

As described on the European Space Agency website, the nucleus is visible as a bright, whitish patch encircled by a mixture of stars, dust, and gas.

The dust is forming dark patches and filaments, silhouetted against the stars' background of stars, while the gas has formed into bright knots called H II regions, mostly spread throughout the arms and outer areas of the galaxy.

The galaxy exhibits one particularly unique and mysterious trait; it is not seen in the said image, although it is visible clearly in wider views of the galaxy.

The northern portion of the disc of the NGC 247 hosts an apparent hole, a gap in the usual swarm of stars and H II regions, spanning nearly a third of the total length of the galaxy.

A report about the Needle's Eye galaxy is shown on Physic Insight's YouTube video below:

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