Spiral Galaxy NGC 6000 Shines in Hubble’s Newest Snapshot

A spiral galaxy within the Scorpius constellation, 100 million light-years away, is a magnificence to say the least. NASA/ESA’s Hubble Area Telescope captured pictures of NGC 6000, which has a golden core and blue arms, offering a glimpse into stellar evolution, supernovae, in addition to an surprising customer from our personal Photo voltaic System.

The core of NGC 6000 is heat golden, outdated and funky. These are the galaxy’s veterans, smaller and fewer huge with a vivid crimson core. As you progress outwards the spiral arms flip blue, the place youthful, hotter and extra huge stars group collectively in good clusters. The distinction is placing: gold dissolves into blue and age provides option to youth.

NGC 6000 has had two supernovae in recent times, one in 2007 and one in 2010. Even years later Hubble can nonetheless see the faint glow from these stellar explosions. These ghosts reveal details about the celebs that went increase and whether or not they had companions.

Zoom in on the correct facet of the galaxy and also you’ll see one thing uncommon – 4 yellow and blue traces slicing throughout the starry background. These are the footprints of an asteroid passing by way of our Photo voltaic System. Hubble caught it in mid-motion and took a number of exposures to create this composite picture. Every streak is from a unique filter which captures particular wavelengths of sunshine to see stars based mostly on their shade.

Hubble was searching for supernova remnants however the picture exhibits greater than that. It exhibits the construction of a galaxy, the lifetime of its stars and the interplay of sunshine and time. The golden middle, blue arms, supernova ghosts and shifting asteroid all work collectively to make NGC 6000 greater than only a analysis topic.