The swirling spiral galaxy on this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture is NGC 3285B, which resides 137 million light-years away within the constellation Hydra (the Water Snake). Hydra has the most important space of the 88 constellations that cowl your entire sky in a celestial patchwork. It’s additionally the longest constellation, stretching 100 levels throughout the sky. It could take practically 200 full Moons, positioned aspect by aspect, to achieve from one aspect of the constellation to the opposite.
NGC 3285B is a member of the Hydra I cluster, one of many largest galaxy clusters within the close by universe. Galaxy clusters are collections of tons of to hundreds of galaxies certain to 1 one other by gravity. The Hydra I cluster is anchored by two large elliptical galaxies at its middle. Every of those galaxies is about 150,000 light-years throughout, making them about 50% bigger than our residence galaxy, the Milky Manner.
NGC 3285B sits on the outskirts of its residence cluster, removed from the huge galaxies on the middle. This galaxy drew Hubble’s consideration as a result of it hosted a Kind Ia supernova in 2023. Kind Ia supernovae occur when a kind of condensed stellar core referred to as a white dwarf detonates, igniting a sudden burst of nuclear fusion that briefly shines about 5 billion occasions brighter than the Solar. The supernova, named SN 2023xqm, is seen right here as a blueish dot on the left fringe of the galaxy’s disk.
Hubble noticed NGC 3285B as a part of an observing program that focused 100 Kind Ia supernovae. By viewing every of those supernovae in ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared gentle, researchers goal to disentangle the consequences of distance and dirt, each of which may make a supernova seem redder than it really is. This program will assist refine cosmic distance measurements that depend on observations of Kind Ia supernovae.
Textual content Credit score: ESA/Hubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD