[NASA] Hubble Spots a Grand Spiral of Starbursts

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Hubble Spots a Grand Spiral of Starbursts

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The glittering NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is of the spiral galaxy NGC 5248, also known as Caldwell 45.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team

The sparkling scene depicted in this NASA/ESA

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image is of the spiral galaxy NGC 5248, located 42 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Boötes. It is also known as

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. The

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holds visually interesting celestial objects that are not as commonly observed by ******** astronomers as the more famous

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objects.

NGC 5248 is one of the so-called ‘grand design’ spirals, with prominent spiral arms that reach from near the core out through the disk. It also has a faint bar structure at its center, between the inner ends of the spiral arms, which is not quite so obvious in this visible-light portrait from Hubble. Features like these which break the rotational symmetry of a galaxy have a huge influence on how matter moves through it, and eventually its evolution through time. They feed gas from a galaxy’s outer reaches to inner star-forming regions, and even to a galaxy’s central ****** ***** where it can kick-start an active galactic nucleus.

These flows of gas have shaped NGC 5248 in a big way; it has many bright ‘starburst regions’ of intense star formation spread across its disk, which a population of young stars dominates. The galaxy even has two very active, ring-shaped starburst regions around its nucleus, filled with young clusters of stars. These ‘nuclear rings’ are remarkable enough, but normally a nuclear ring tends to block gas from getting further into the core of a galaxy. NGC 5248 having a second ring inside the first is a marker of just how forceful its flows of matter and energy are! Because the galaxy is relatively nearby, its highly visible starburst regions make the galaxy a target for professional and ******** astronomers alike.

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Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s 

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, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated

Oct 10, 2024

Editor

Andrea Gianopoulos

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