The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week is the spiral galaxy NGC 337, located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).
This image combines observations made at two wavelengths, highlighting the galaxy’s golden centre and blue outskirts. The golden central glow comes from older stars, while the sparkling blue edges get their colour from young stars. If Hubble had observed NGC 337 about a decade ago, the telescope would have spotted something remarkable among the hot blue stars along the galaxy’s edge: a brilliant supernova.
The supernova, named SN 2014cx, is remarkable for having been discovered nearly simultaneously in two vastly different ways: by a prolific supernova hunter, Koichi Itagaki, and by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). ASAS-SN is a worldwide network of robotic telescopes that scans the sky for sudden events like supernovae.
Researchers have determined that SN 2014cx was a Type IIP supernova. The “Type II” classification means that the exploding star was a supergiant at least eight times as massive as the Sun. The “P” stands for plateau, meaning that after the light from the supernova began to fade, the level reached a plateau, remaining at the same brightness for several weeks or months before fading further. This type of supernova occurs when a massive star can no longer produce enough energy in its core to stave off the crushing pressure of gravity. SN 2014cx’s progenitor star is estimated to have been ten times more massive than the Sun and hundreds of times as wide. Though it has long since dimmed from its initial brilliance, researchers are still keeping tabs on this exploded star, not least through the Hubble observing programme which produced this image.
[Image Description: A barred spiral galaxy on a dark background. The galaxy’s central region is a pale colour due to older stars, contains some pale reddish threads of dust, and is brighter along a broad horizontal bar through the very centre. Off the bar come several stubby spiral arms, merging into the outer region of the disc. It is a cool blue colour and contains some bright sparkling blue spots, both indicating young hot stars.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick; CC BY 4.0
Tags: NGC 337 ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology HST Hubble Space Telescope Galaxy Supernova NASA Creative Commons Stars Star Spiral Galaxy Galaxies Cetus
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NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Kevin M. Gill
Tags: Mars Mars2020 Perseverance Rover MastCam-Z
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Kevin M. Gill
Tags: Mars Mars2020 Perseverance Rover MastCam-Z
In this image from Dec. 11, 2024, the 212-foot-tall SLS (Space Launch System) core stage is lowered into High Bay 2 at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the move to High Bay 2, NASA and Boeing technicians now have 360-degree access to the core stage both internally and externally.
The Artemis II test flight, targeted for launch in 2026, will be NASA’s first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign. NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will go on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.
Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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Credit:
Processing: Andrea Luck CC BY
Raw Data: NASA/JPL
Colourised image created processing data from: pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov
Mission: VIKING_ORBITER_1
Instrument: VISUAL_IMAGING_SUBSYSTEM_CAMERA_A
Time: 1976-07-30T13:31:11Z
Filter: Red
Product ID:
f040a63
planetarydata.jpl.nasa.gov/img/data/viking/viking_orbiter...
Credit:
Processing: Andrea Luck CC BY
Raw Data: NASA/JPL
Feel free to share, giving the appropriate credit and providing a link to the original image or tweet: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Tags: Mars NASA JPL Space Viking1 Viking Galle Argyre Astronomy
