NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is winning the internet once again, this time with an image of a new galaxy that is a hotbed of intense star formation. This entity is called NGC 1569, and is a dwarf galaxy located about seven million light-years from Earth. Known for its “star factories”, this galaxy produces bright blue star clusters which can be seen in the twinkling image below.
Star formation stopped after humans appeared on Earth
According to NASA, the galaxy NGC 1569 underwent a sudden burst of star formation about 25 million years ago. Interestingly enough, this stopped abruptly when the first human ancestors appeared on Earth. The agency says that this dwarf galaxy is one of the closest stellar galaxies, making it easier for Hubble to conduct detailed studies of its local counterparts, neighboring galaxies of stellar explosions and impactors.
Hubble observations revealed that NGC 1569 hosts two small and massive star clusters, as well as a large number of smaller clusters. It should be noted that the two smaller clusters correspond to those in the Milky Way while the smaller cluster is comparable to the lower mass clusters around our galaxy. The galaxy was studied in great detail in 2004, it produced stars for 20 million years after the start of the stellar explosion, a team of European scientists found. According to a NASA report, astronomer and study author Peter Anders said, “We saw firsthand the process of star formation and star clusters in this galaxy. The cluster itself provides us with the fossil record of the intense star-forming history of NGC 1569.”
As for the features of the galaxy in the image, one can see a bubble-like structure made of hydrogen gas. This gas, according to NASA, glows when exposed to strong winds, radiation from young stars, and supernova shocks. The agency says that the galaxy’s first supernova exploded about 20-25 million years ago, when the most massive stars were reaching the final stages of their lives.
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