(Press-News.org) Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a real star among galaxies, with more papers written about it than many other galaxies put together!
Despite its current fame and striking swirling appearance, the galaxy has been a victim of mistaken identity a couple of times; when it was initially discovered in 1780, the distinction between gas clouds and galaxies was not known, causing finder Pierre Mechain to miss its true nature and label it as a nebula. It was misclassified again when it was subsequently listed in the Messier Catalogue as a star cluster.
Now, however, it is firmly categorised as a barred spiral galaxy, with loosely wound arms and a relatively small central bulge. It is the closest and brightest example of a particular class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies -- galaxies that are full of hot, highly ionised gas that glows brightly, emitting intense radiation.
Strong radiation like this is known to come from the heart of Messier 77 -- caused by a very active black hole that is around 15 million times the mass of our Sun. Material is dragged towards this black hole and circles around it, heating up and glowing strongly. This region of a galaxy alone, although comparatively small, can be tens of thousands of times brighter than a typical galaxy.
Although no competition for the intense centre, Messier 77's spiral arms are also very bright regions. Dotted along each arm are knotty red clumps -- a signal that new stars are forming. These baby stars shine strongly, ionising nearby gas which then glows a deep red colour as seen in the image above. The dust lanes stretching across this image appear as a rusty, brown-red colour due to a phenomenon known as reddening; the dust absorbs more blue light than red light, enhancing its apparent redness.
A version of this image won second place in the Hubble's Hidden Treasures Image Processing Competition, entered by contestant Andre van der Hoeven [1].
INFORMATION:
Notes
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
[1] Hidden Treasures is an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public. The competition is now closed, and the list of winners, including Andre's image of Messier 77, is available here: http://www.spacetelescope.org/announcements/ann1211.
Image credit: NASA, ESA & A. van der Hoeven
Links
Images of Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/
Hubble's Hidden Treasures: http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/hiddentreasures/contest/
Contacts
Nicky Guttridge
Hubble/ESA
Garching, Germany
Hubble observes the hidden depths of Messier 77
2013-03-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study reveals how diabetes drug delays ageing in worms
2013-03-28
A widely prescribed type 2 diabetes drug slows down the ageing process by mimicking the effects of dieting, according to a study published today using worms to investigate how the drug works.
Following a calorie-restricted diet has been shown to improve health in later life and extend lifespan in a number of animals, ranging from the simple worm to rhesus monkeys. The type 2 diabetes drug metformin has been found to have similar effects in animals but until now it was not clear exactly how the drug delays the ageing process.
Researchers supported by the Wellcome Trust ...
What attracts people to violent movies?
2013-03-28
Washington, DC (March 26, 2013) – Why are audiences attracted to bloodshed, gore and violence? A recent study from researchers at the University of Augsburg, Germany and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people are more likely to watch movies with gory scenes of violence if they felt there was meaning in confronting violent aspects of real life.
Anne Bartsch, University of Augsburg, Germany and Louise Mares, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present their findings at the 63rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. Their study ...
A social network for young Londoners on the buses
2013-03-28
Free bus travel has improved the social lives and independence of 12-18 year olds in London, according to research published today in the journal Mobilities.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and UCL (University College London) found that free bus travel – which all young Londoners are entitled to by registering for a Zip Oyster Card – increased young people's ability to travel independently and extended their opportunities through facilitating extra trips, trips further afield and/or exploratory trips with friends.
Travelling together ...
Should I trust my intuition?
2013-03-28
A study led by Zachary Mainen, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, and published today (March 28th) in the scientific journal, Neuron, reports that when rats were challenged with a series of perceptual decision problems, their performance was just as good when they decided rapidly as when they took a much longer time to respond. Despite being encouraged to slow down and try harder, the subjects of this study achieved their maximum performance in less than 300 milliseconds.
'There are many kinds of decisions, and for some, having more time appears to be ...
Protective prion keeps yeast cells from going it alone
2013-03-28
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (March 28, 2013) – Most commonly associated with such maladies as "mad cow disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions are increasingly recognized for their ability to induce potentially beneficial traits in a variety of organisms, yeast chief among them.
Now a team of scientists has added markedly to the job description of prions as agents of change, identifying a prion capable of triggering a transition in yeast from its conventional single-celled form to a cooperative, multicellular structure. This change, which appears to improve yeast's chances ...
Scientists propose revolutionary laser system to produce the next LHC
2013-03-28
An international team of physicists has proposed a revolutionary laser system, inspired by the telecommunications technology, to produce the next generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The International Coherent Amplification Network (ICAN) sets out a new laser system composed of massive arrays of thousands of fibre lasers, for both fundamental research at laboratories such as CERN and more applied tasks such as proton therapy and nuclear transmutation.
The results of this study are published today in Nature Photonics.
Lasers ...
Scientists identify brain's 'molecular memory switch'
2013-03-28
Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss.
The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus — the part of the brain involved in learning.
Previous ...
Declaring a truce with our microbiological frienemies
2013-03-28
Managing bacteria and other microorganisms in the body, rather than just fighting them, may be lead to better health and a stronger immune system, according to a Penn State biologist.
Researchers have historically focused on microbes in the body as primarily pathogens that must be fought, said Eric Harvill, professor of microbiology and infectious disease. However, he said that recent evidence of the complex interaction of the body with microbes suggests a new interpretation of the relationship.
"Now we are beginning to understand that the immune system interacts with ...
Parkinson's disease protein gums up garbage disposal system in cells
2013-03-28
PHILADELPHIA – Clumps of α-synuclein protein in nerve cells are hallmarks of many degenerative brain diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease.
"No one has been able to determine if Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, hallmark pathologies in Parkinson's disease can be degraded," says Virginia Lee, PhD, director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
"With the new neuron model system of Parkinson's disease pathologies our lab has developed recently, we demonstrated that these aberrant clumps ...
Common -- but without a name
2013-03-28
The most commonly occurring red alga in the algal order Bangiales in New Zealand has at last received a formal scientific name. Pyropia plicata, is an intertidal red alga, found in abundance in the North, South and Chatham Islands. It has been confused for many years with a species first collected from the New Zealand subantarctic islands in 1840. Recent research had clarified the identity and distribution of the southern species, Porphyra columbina, and also transferred it to the genus Pyropia. The description of Py. plicata was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.
The ...