Hubble Space Telescope Spies Stunning Spiral Galaxy
Sep 4, 2023
A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features IC 1776, a barred spiral galaxy that hosted a supernova explosion about eight years ago.
IC 1776 is located roughly 150 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces.
Otherwise known as IRAS F02026+0552, LEDA 7952 or UGC 1579, this galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Stéphane Javelle on December 21, 1903.
“IC 1776 is irregularly-shaped and its spiral arms are difficult to distinguish,” Hubble astronomers said.
“The edges are faint and the core has a pale yellow glow.”
“It is dotted with small, wispy, blue regions where stars are forming.”
“A few stars and small galaxies in warm colors are visible around it.”
In 2015, an intermediate-luminosity Type Ib supernova event called SN 2015ap was observed in IC 1776.
“SN 2015ap was discovered in 2015 by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search, a robotic telescope which scours the night sky in search of transient phenomena such as supernovae,” the astronomers explained.
“A network of automatic robotic telescopes are spread across the globe, operated by both professional and amateur astronomers, and, without human intervention, reveal short-lived astronomical phenomena such as wandering asteroids, gravitational microlensing, or supernovae.”
“Hubble investigated the aftermath of SN 2015ap during two different observing programs, both designed to comb through the debris left by supernovae explosions in order to better understand these energetic events,” they added.
“A variety of telescopes automatically follow up the detection of supernovae to obtain early measurements of these events’ brightnesses and spectra.”
“Complementing these measurements with later observations which reveal the lingering energy of supernovae can shed light on the systems which gave rise to these cosmic cataclysms in the first place.”
https://www.sci.news/astronomy/hubble-spiral-galaxy-ic-1776-12234.html