Galaxies are so diverse, and there are trillions of them in the observable Universe. Some are considered ‘dwarfs,’ as they only have about ten million stars. On the other side, there are massive giant galaxies that can have a hundred trillion stars each.
We’re not sure where exactly to include the Barred Spiral Galaxy known as NGC 7496. It measures 70,000 light-years across, which makes it smaller than our own Milky Way galaxy. NGC 7496 is also known as LEDA 70588, ESO 291-1, and IRAS 23069-4341. NASA’s Hubble telescope is giving some special attention to the galaxy.
NGC 7496 is located 24 million light-years away
You can completely forget about any hopes to go to any of the galaxy’s solar systems to see what’s cooking there. NGC 7496 is located very far away from Earth: about 24 million light-years. It’s also part of the Grus constellation, which is located in the southern part of the sky.
Hubble snapped a new photo of the galaxy, and it qualified for the ‘Picture of the Week’:
This Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7496, which lies over 24 million light-years away in the constellation Grus.
https://t.co/hvbeSt1D7Q pic.twitter.com/vZcHLfDiJt
— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) May 30, 2022
Hubble astronomers explained as sci-news.com quotes:
This constellation, whose name is Latin for crane, is one of four constellations collectively known as the Southern Birds,
The others are Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana, which depict a peacock, phoenix, and toucan respectively.
The rest of the night sky is also home to a flock of ornithological constellations, including an eagle (Aquilla), swan (Cygnus), crow (Corvus), and dove (Columba).
The image shown above was possible due to the observations of Hubble made using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) that’s mounted on the telescope. Data obtained using five filters contributed to the image.
While Hubble still seems pretty active, the world should be weeks away until the next-gen James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will reveal its first pictures taken of other galaxies. JWST will have the mission to dive deeper into the structure of galaxies than ever before.
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