NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently observed barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068 located 20 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. At the top center, we see a bright central bar, which is densely packed with mature stars, while a black hole likes behind it tugging the stars together with its intense gravitational pull.
The bright pinkish-red splotches that you see along the bottom and sides of the image are essentially areas of ionized hydrogen gas where young star clusters lie. These splotches line the galaxy’s thousands of spiral arms, where new stars typically form. NGC 5068 also contains at least 110 Wolf-Rayet stars, or old massive stars that lose mass at a very high rate.
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NGC 5068 is difficult to see with human eyes because it has relatively low surface brightness. Luckily, Hubble’s ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared capabilities helped capture the beauty and intrigue of this galaxy. Different cosmic objects emit different wavelengths of light; young and hot stars emit ultraviolet light, so Hubble uses ultraviolet observations to find them,” said NASA.
