Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine
Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine
The constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) is the largest of the Zodiac
constellations, and the second largest overall after Hydra (The Water
Snake). Its most appealing feature, however, is the sheer number of
galaxies that lie within it. In this picture, among a crowd of face- and
edge-on spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies, lies NGC 4866, a
lenticular galaxy situated about 80 million light-years from Earth.
Lenticular galaxies are somewhere between spirals and ellipticals in
terms of shape and properties. From the picture, we can appreciate the
bright central bulge of NGC 4886, which contains primarily old stars,
but no spiral arms are visible. The galaxy is seen from Earth as almost
edge-on, meaning that the disc structure — a feature not present in
elliptical galaxies — is clearly visible. Faint dust lanes trace across
NGC 4866 in this image, obscuring part of the galaxy’s light.
To the right of the galaxy is a very bright star that appears to lie
within NGC 4886’s halo. However, this star actually lies much closer to
us; in front of the galaxy, along our line of sight. These kinds of
perspective tricks are common when observing, and can initially deceive
astronomers as to the true nature and position of objects such as
galaxies, stars, and clusters.
This sharp image of NGC 4866 was captured by the Advanced Camera for
Surveys, an instrument on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A version
was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Gilles Chapdelaine.
