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This Hubble House Telescope symbol showcases the intense spiral galaxy NGC 4689. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee, and the PHANGS-HST Staff
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This Hubble House Telescope symbol showcases the intense spiral galaxy NGC 4689. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee, and the PHANGS-HST Staff
This NASA/ESA Hubble House Telescope symbol displays the jewel-bright spiral galaxy NGC 4689, which lies 54 million light-years from Earth within the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation has the honour of being the one one of the crucial 88 constellations formally known via the Global Astronomical Union (IAU) as one named after the historic determine, Queen Berenice II of Egypt.
The Latin phrase “coma” references her hair, which means that that NGC 4689 lies within the hair of a queen. Some folks of Berenice’s time would have supposed this slightly actually, as the tale is going that her courtroom astronomer concept {that a} lacking lock of Berenice’s hair were catasterized (a phrase that means “positioned some of the stars”) via the gods: therefore the identify of the constellation, Coma Berenices.
NGC 4689 holds a captivating—albeit much less royal—position in trendy astronomy. The universe is so extremely huge that at a distance of 54 million light-years NGC 4689 is slightly close by for a galaxy. This symbol contains knowledge from two units of observations, one made in 2019, the opposite in 2024 , and each are a part of techniques that seen more than one “close by” galaxies.
The 2024 gazing program is a fascinating instance of the way Hubble—a very productive telescope for greater than 3 many years—and the James Webb House Telescope supplement each and every different. Observations gathered via Webb stand to develop into our working out of the way galaxies exchange and evolve over the years, via offering infrared knowledge at an remarkable stage of element and readability. Alternatively, ultraviolet and visual gentle observations from Hubble—corresponding to the ones used to create this symbol—supplement Webb’s observations.
On this case, the Hubble knowledge be offering a extra correct evaluation of the stellar populations of close by galaxies, which is a very powerful to working out their evolution. Hubble and Webb observations play a very powerful function in growing our working out of the way galaxies shape and evolve, and observations of NGC 4689 are a precious a part of that quest for wisdom. If truth be told, Hubble featured a picture of the galaxy earlier than, in 2020.
