Hubble Captures an Active Galactic Center

The light that the NASA / ESA Hubble space telescope collected to create this image reached the telescope after a trip of 250 million years. Its source was the Spiral Galaxy UGC 11397, which lies in the Constellation Lyra (The Lyre). At first glance, the UGC 11397 seems to be a medium spiral galaxy: it sports two graceful spiral arms which are illuminated by stars and defined by dark and clumsy clouds of dust.

What distinguishes UGC 11397 from a typical spiral is in its center, where a supermassive black hole containing 174 million times the mass of our sun grows. As a tilting black hole in gas, dust and even whole stars of its neighborhood, this condemned material heats up and organizes a fantastic spectacle of cosmic light.

The material trapped by the black hole emits light from the gamma rays to the radio waves and can lead to and fade without warning. But in some galaxies, including UGC 11397, thick clouds of dust mask a large part of this energy activity of view in optical light. Despite this, the UGC 11397 UGC black growth was revealed through its brilliant X -ray emission – a high energy light that can pierce the surrounding dust. This led astronomers to classify it like a type 2 Seyfert galaxy, a category used for active galaxies whose central regions are hidden in view visible by a cloud of dust and gas in the shape of a belly.

Using Hubble, researchers will study hundreds of galaxies which, like UGC 11397, are home to a supermassive hole which gains mass. Hubble observations will help researchers evaluate the nearby supermassive black holes, to understand how black holes developed at the beginning of the history of the universe, and even study how the stars are formed in the extreme environment found at the center of a galaxy.

Contact with the media::

Claire Andreol (Claire.andreoli@nasa.gov))
Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center,, Greenery belt, MD