NASA-ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope snaps a hidden galaxy 100 mn light years away
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The Hubble Space Telescope, jointly run by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the US space agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has stunned everyone for decades, from the hardened professional astronomer to the lay person, with its amazing documentation of the Universe at large, looking back in time billions of years ago into galaxies being born and dying, stars exploding, black holes gobbling up everything around them and so much more. While it may have been supplanted to a large extent by the more recent, and capable, James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble Telescope continues to amaze with its amazing output even though it is being done through decades old technology.
Galaxy IC 4633
Now, Hubble Space Telescope has gone and taken yet another fascinating image of a galaxy far away in the Universe. This stunning image showcases the spiral galaxy IC 4633, positioned 100 million light-years away in the Apus constellation where star formation is going on apace. In fact, IC 4633 also houses an active galactic nucleus at its center. The Hubble Telescope image offers astronomers a glimpse of the billions of stars that it is composed of.
However, the galaxy’s features are partly covered, particularly in visible light, due to dark dust that is partially obscuring it. This is especially so in the lower-right of the image. The Chamaeleon clouds are dominating their constellation as well as spilling over into neighboring ones like Apus.
This region is special for its young stellar population and that is why a lot of the attention of both the Hubble Telescope and the James Webb Telescope has been devoted to this awesome celestial entity.
All about Hubble Telescope that you wanted to know:
* Hubble dimensions: 43.5 feet long, 14 feet wide, weighing 27,000 pounds.
* Powered by two solar arrays and six batteries for operation during shaded orbits.
* Four 100-pound reaction wheels reorient Hubble based on Newton’s laws.
* Gyroscopes detect motion; Hubble has six, typically uses three.
* Three Fine Guidance Sensors maintain stability during observations.
* Hubble’s precision: less than 7 milliarcseconds variation in 24 hours.
* Turning this giant: Hubble’s main computer calculates which wheels should slow and which ones spin faster to most efficiently maneuver the spacecraft to the new target – this is on the basis of ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’.
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