This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features
the face-on spiral galaxy NGC 1309.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, L.
Galbany, S. Jha, K. Noll, A. Riess
Rich with detail, the spiral galaxy NGC
1309 shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. NGC 1309 is about 100 million light-years away in the
constellation Eridanus.
This stunning Hubble image encompasses
NGC 1309’s bluish stars, dark brown gas clouds, and pearly-white core, as well
as hundreds of distant background galaxies. Nearly every smudge, streak, and
blob of light in this image is an individual galaxy, some shining through less
dense regions of NGC 1309 itself. The only exception to this extragalactic
ensemble is a star near the top of the frame identified by its diffraction spikes. The star is positively neighborly at just a few thousand light-years
away in the Milky Way galaxy.
Hubble turned its attention toward NGC
1309 several times; previous Hubble images of this galaxy were released in 2006 and 2014.
Much of NGC 1309’s scientific interest derives from two supernovae, SN 2002fk
in 2002 and SN 2012Z in 2012. SN 2002fk was a perfect example of a Type Ia
supernova, which happens when the stripped-down core of a dead star (a white dwarf) explodes.
SN 2012Z, on the other hand, was a bit
of a renegade. It was classified as a Type Iax supernova: while its spectrum
resembled that of a Type Ia supernova, the explosion wasn’t as bright as
expected. Hubble observations showed that in this case, the supernova did not destroy the white dwarf
completely, leaving behind a ‘zombie star’ that shone even brighter than it did
before the explosion. Hubble observations of NGC 1309 taken across several
years also made this the first time astronomers spotted a star system that
later produced an unusual supernova explosion of a white dwarf.
Text Credit: ESA/Hubble
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