This Stunning Spiral Galaxy Is Mesmerizing – Image Took 9 Hours Observation Time on Hubble Space Telescope

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This Stunning Spiral Galaxy Is Mesmerizing – Image Took 9 Hours Observation Time on Hubble Space Telescope

 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al. Acknowledgement: Mahdi Zamani

Spiral Galaxy NGC 5643

 

This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643 in the constellation of Lupus (The

 

Wolf). Looking this good isn’t easy; thirty different exposures, for a total of 9 hours observation time, together with the high

 

resolution and clarity of Hubble, were needed to produce an image of such high level of detail and of beauty.

 

NGC 5643 is about 60 million light-years away from Earth and has been the host of a recent supernova event (not visible in this latest

 

image). This supernova (2017cbv) was a specific type in which a white dwarf steals so much mass from a companion star that it

 

becomes unstable and explodes. The explosion releases significant amounts of energy and lights up that part of the galaxy.

 

The observation was proposed by Adam Riess, who was awarded a Nobel Laureate in physics 2011 for his contributions to the

 

discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe, alongside Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt.

 

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