Hubble telescope spots spider galaxy 30M light-years from Earth

Doug Cunningham
·1 min read
4
NASA said Friday the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a "spider galaxy" called UGC 5829 that's about 30 million light-years from Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA
NASA said Friday the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a "spider galaxy" called UGC 5829 that's about 30 million light-years from Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA

March 22 (UPI) -- NASA said Friday the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a spider galaxy, an irregular galaxy, about 30 million light-years from Earth.

NASA said the relatively faint galaxy, which had not been observed before, has a distinct and descriptive name: the Spider Galaxy. That's because it has distorted galactic arms resembling a spider.

It appears to consist of glowing, star-forming tips shaped somewhat like spider legs.

The galaxy, known as UGC 5829, was identified from two different Hubble observing programs.

One looks at relatively nearby galaxies, attempting to build color versus brightness diagrams of galaxy stars.

NASA's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, added to the Hubble Space telescope in 2009, helped spot the spider galaxy. Photo courtesy of NASA
NASA's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, added to the Hubble Space telescope in 2009, helped spot the spider galaxy. Photo courtesy of NASA

Each of those observations took roughly 95 minutes or one Hubble orbit. They provided an archival record of various types of stars in different galaxies and environments.

The second observation program employed Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to view dwarf galaxy star clusters. It used Hubble's ultraviolet capabilities plus an ability to see fine detail in order to better understand the dwarf galaxies environments where the stars form.

Those star-forming regions appear in the telescope images as bright pink nebulae or clouds.

The Wide Field Camera was installed by astronauts in 2009 during Hubble Servicing Mission 4.