NASA's powerful Hubble space telescope has beamed back a striking photo of a 'fluffy' galaxy with a ghostly, empty center

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NASA's powerful Hubble space telescope has beamed back a striking photo of a 'fluffy' galaxy with a ghostly, empty center

Galaxy NGC 2275, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, July 2, 2020. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

 

NASA's most powerful space telescope, Hubble, captured a uniquely picturesque galaxy in a photo the agency released on Thursday.

 

The galaxy, called NGC 2775, is located 67 million light-years away and doesn't seem to be forming stars that much anymore. Astronomers can tell that's the case because of the

 

relatively empty, clear bulge at the galaxy's center. When it was younger, the galaxy's middle region was likely bursting with activity as gas condensed into newborn stars. Now,

 

however, all the gas seems to be used up.

 

The arms spinning around the galaxy's center are "flocculent" — fluffy and feathery-looking — due to dark lines of dust and puffs of gas clouds. Millions of young stars shine

 

bright blue through the haze.

 

By contrast, other spiral galaxies — including the Milky Way — have more distinct arms where stars and gas are compressed.

 

This artist's concept of the Milky Way shows the galaxy's two major arms and two minor arms attached to the ends of a thick central bar. NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

Hubble is NASA's strongest telescope — but not for long

NASA launched Hubble into Earth's orbit in April 1990. Since then, the telescope has discovered new planets, revealed strange galaxies, and provided new insights into the nature

 

of black holes. It also found that the universe is expanding more quickly than scientists imagined.

 

 

The Hubble Space Telescope orbits Earth, 2002. NASA/ESA

 

Upcoming space telescopes could return photos even more striking than Hubble's.

 

NASA's next such project, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will use more advanced infrared cameras than any past telescope to image our galaxy. 

 

"Even one image from Webb will be the highest-quality image ever obtained of the galactic center," Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer who worked on JWST's imaging tools,

 

said in a 2019

 

Engineers and technicians working on the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA/Chris Gunn

 

Such images could help answer some of scientists' biggest questions about how our galaxy formed and how it evolves over time.

 

Additionally, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — named for the woman who made Hubble's launch possible — will have 100 times the view of Hubble. After it launches

 

in the mid-2020s, it's expected to photograph thousands of new exoplanets and probe the nature of dark energy, a mysterious force that makes up 68% of the universe and

 

drives its expansion.

 

The field of view of the Hubble Space telescope compared to WFIRST. NASA

 

Over the Roman Space Telescope's five-year lifetime, it will measure light from a billion galaxies and survey the inner Milky Way with the hope of finding about 2,600 new planets

 

and photographing them. It will also help scientists test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity

 

The upcoming telescope is fully assembled and now faces a long testing process in Northrop Grumman's California facilities before its launch date on March 30, 2021.

 

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