Latest news with #spiralgalaxies
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA offers dazzling new sights (and sounds) of the Andromeda galaxy
Even a century after Edward Hubble confirmed its existence, astronomers learn new details about the Andromeda galaxy that help us better understand our cosmic neighborhood and the wider universe. Earlier this week, NASA released its latest detailed images of the Milky Way's spiral sibling, as well an ethereal sonification of its energy wavelengths. Attaining an outside view of the Milky Way galaxy is a bit like trying to examine the entire planet from your backyard—that is to say, it's impossible from humanity's current vantage point. The next best option for astronomers is gazing at similar nearby spiral galaxies, the closest of which is Messier 31. Also known as Andromeda, the Milky Way's most immediate neighbor is about 2.5 million light-years away, and provides an excellent option for studying how spiral galaxies form and evolve over time. It's also where a team led by astronomer Vera Rubin first detected the anomalous material now known as 'dark matter' in the 1960s. The newest glimpses at Andromeda are based on composite data collected by an international array of the world's most powerful telescopes, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the ESA's XMM-Newton, and even optical information from a pair of astrophotographers. The various kinds of light span the visible, infrared, radio, and ultraviolet wavelengths. When layered, they depict a vibrant and active galaxy reminiscent of our own—and the information is already helping experts expand on Andromeda's ongoing life story. 'For example, Chandra's X-rays reveal the high-energy radiation around the supermassive black hole at the center of M31 as well as many other smaller compact and dense objects strewn across the galaxy,' NASA explained in its announcement. Astronomers aren't limited to studying visual representations of Andromeda's energy; they can also assess them through sound. In addition to the images, NASA researchers compiled the galaxy datasets into a sonification by separating out each wavelength, rotating them, and stacking them on top of one another in order of their frequency. From top to bottom, that means X-rays, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and finally radio waves. These are next assigned a range of corresponding notes, with brightness designating volume while spectrum location determines pitch. The result is a dreamlink chorus of tones as the space telescopes traverse Andromeda's 152,000 light-year diameter. There's still an untold wealth of information to learn from the Milky Way's neighbor, possibly even the means to finally understand the dark matter first detected by Rubin. That's at least what NASA hopes to achieve with the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope currently scheduled to go into operation in 2027.
Digital Trends
07-05-2025
- Science
- Digital Trends
Hubble images two spiral galaxies: one perfect and one peculiar
You might have heard that galaxies come in different types, classified based on their shapes. There are elliptical galaxies, which are smooth and featureless, looking like giant blobs of light. Then there are irregular galaxies, which have often been pulled into strange shapes by the forces of gravity as they merged with or passed close by another galaxy. And then there are the iconic spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, which have long arm-like shapes reaching out from their center to form a distinctive structure. However, not all spiral galaxies are created equal, as two recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope show. The image above shows galaxy NGC 3596, a neat and orderly spiral galaxy. And the image below shows galaxy Arp 184 (also known as NGC 1961), which is a type called a peculiar spiral galaxy. One of the most obvious differences between the two images is the way that the galaxies appear from Earth: we are looking at NGC 3596 face-on, so it appears particularly regular. Galaxy Arp 184, however, we are seeing from an angle, so it looks different. More than that, though, Arp 184 is skewed so that it isn't perfectly spiral shaped. However, it clearly isn't a featureless elliptical galaxy either, so it was categorized as a peculiar galaxy in the delightfully named Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, compiled by Halton Arp in 1966. Recommended Videos The spiral arm closest to us in the image of Arp 184 is prominent and broad, but there is no equivalent large arm on the opposite side. The galaxy is asymmetrical, which is what marks it out as unusual. Compare that to galaxy NGC 3596, which has neat arms of similar sizes, which glow pink in this image to represent areas of busy star formation. So why do some galaxies develop spiral arms but not others, and why do these arms come in so many different shapes and sizes? That's something that astronomers are still studying, but it has to do with the density of stars in certain parts of the galaxy. 'Researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas rather than a physical structure,' Hubble scientists explain. 'As stars, gas and dust orbit within a galaxy's disc, they pass in and out of the spiral arms. Much like cars moving through a traffic jam, these materials slow down and bunch up as they enter a spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy.' Please enable Javascript to view this content
