A Local Starbursting Laboratory, NGC 1140 : 無料・フリー素材/写真
A Local Starbursting Laboratory, NGC 1140 / NASA Hubble
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示 2.1 |
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| 説明 | Dwarf galaxy NGC 1140 has an irregular form, much like the Large Magellanic Cloud — a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. This small galaxy is undergoing what is known as a starburst. Despite being almost ten times smaller than the Milky Way, it is creating stars at about the same rate, with the equivalent of one star the size of the Sun being created per year. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the galaxy illuminated by bright, blue-white, young stars. Galaxies like NGC 1140 — small, starbursting, and containing large amounts of primordial gas with significantly fewer elements heavier than hydrogen and helium than present in our Sun — are of particular interest to astronomers. Their composition makes them similar to the intensely star-forming galaxies in the early universe. And these early universe galaxies were the building blocks of present-day large galaxies like our galaxy, the Milky Way. But, as they are so far away, these early universe galaxies are much harder to study than NGC 1140. The vigorous star formation will ultimately have a destructive effect on this dwarf galaxy, however. When its larger stars explode as supernovas, their gases will be blown into space at such velocities that they will escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy itself and be lost to intergalactic space. The ejection of gas from the galaxy thus means throwing out its potential for making future stars. For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1529a/Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASAFind us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube |
| 撮影日 | 2015-03-13 11:02:24 |
| 撮影者 | NASA Hubble |
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