Hubble Spies Peculiar Spiral Galaxy Edge-On | Sci.News

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope of the peculiar, edge-on spiral galaxy UGC 10043.

UGC 10043 lies approximately 150 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Serpens.

Also known as IRAS 15464+2201 or LEDA 56094, this galaxy is one of the somewhat rare spirals that are seen edge-on.

“We see the galaxy’s disk as a sharp line through space, overlain with a prominent dust lane,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“This dust is spread across the spiral arms of UGC 10043, but it looks very thick and cloudy when viewed from the side.”

“You can even see the lights of some active star-forming regions in the arms, shining out from behind the dust.”

“Strikingly, we can also see that the center of the galaxy sports a glowing, almost egg-shaped bulge, rising far above and below the disk.”

“All spiral galaxies have a bulge like this one as part of their structure, containing stars that orbit the galactic center on paths above and below the whirling disk.”

“It’s a feature that isn’t normally obvious in pictures of galaxies.”

“The unusually large size of this bulge compared to the galaxy’s disk is possibly thanks to UGC 10043 siphoning material from a nearby dwarf galaxy.”

“This may also be why the disk is warped, bending up at one end and down at the other.”

The color image of UGC 10043 was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).

Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths.

The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.

“Like most of the full-color images released by Hubble, this image is a composite, made up of several individual snapshots taken by Hubble at different times and capturing different wavelengths of light,” the astronomers explained.

“A notable aspect of this image is that the two sets of Hubble data used were collected 23 years apart, in 2000 and 2023!”

“Hubble’s longevity doesn’t just afford us the ability to produce new and better images of old targets.”

“It also provides a long-term archive of data which only becomes more and more useful to astronomers.”