Although the James Webb Space Telescope has gotten a lot of press lately, its predecessor Hubble Space Telescope Continue to impress this time with the galaxy NGC 6956, a near-perfect example of an abstract galaxy located about 214 million light-years from Earth.
Barred galaxies, which get their name from a very prominent “bar”. stars that cut through the galactic core, are among the most numerous types galaxies in the known universe, They make up about 70% of all galaxies (Opens in a new tab). Ribbon structures are also more common in galaxies with active galactic nuclei, as gas and other material is fed towards the galactic nucleus along these bars.
This process Ultimately it helps to destabilize the tape (Opens in a new tab)However, the more mass funneled into the galactic core, the more unstable the rod becomes, which eventually causes the rod to soften into the more traditional spiral configuration – Like NGC 2985 (Opens in a new tab) – what most people think of when they think of a file spiral galaxy.
Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope photos ever!
according to Image description from NASA (Opens in a new tab)This last image of NGC 6956 was for a glimpse of Cepheid variable stars, which are stars whose brightness varies from bright to dim at regular intervals. These periods of brightness and dimming are directly related to the real brightness of the star, we can explain these differences in apparent brightness by the real brightness of the stars, which allows us to determine their distance from us.
This is an important way for astronomers to determine the distance to extragalactic objects like NGC 6956, as we currently know of few other ways to do it. There are other interesting features on NGC 6956 such as the visible Type Ia Supernovawhich is the product of the explosion of a white dwarf star as a result of the accumulation of material from a companion star.
This type of supernova is another important way to determine the distance to distant galaxies, as astronomers are able to measure how fast a supernova fades to help measure its distance from Earth. And while accurately compiling a galaxy map is useful in its own right, repeated measurements of the distance to these extragalactic objects are an important tool in understanding the current rate of expansion of the universe.
