File:The lights of a galactic bar (potw2422a).jpg
Page contents not supported in other languages.
Appearance
![File:The lights of a galactic bar (potw2422a).jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/The_lights_of_a_galactic_bar_%28potw2422a%29.jpg/582px-The_lights_of_a_galactic_bar_%28potw2422a%29.jpg)
Size of this preview: 582 × 599 pixels. Other resolutions: 233 × 240 pixels | 466 × 480 pixels | 746 × 768 pixels | 995 × 1,024 pixels | 1,990 × 2,048 pixels | 3,971 × 4,087 pixels.
Original file (3,971 × 4,087 pixels, file size: 7.68 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
![]() | This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. You can help. |
Summary
DescriptionThe lights of a galactic bar (potw2422a).jpg |
English: This week, an image of the broad and sweeping spiral galaxy NGC 4731 is the Hubble Picture of the Week. This galaxy lies among the galaxies of the Virgo cluster, in the constellation Virgo, and is located 43 million light-years from Earth. This highly detailed image was created using six different filters. The abundance of colour illustrates the galaxy's billowing clouds of gas, dark dust bands, bright pink star-forming regions and, most obviously, the long, glowing bar with trailing arms.Barred spiral galaxies outnumber both regular spirals and elliptical galaxies put together, numbering around 60% of all galaxies. The visible bar structure is a result of orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy lining up, forming a dense region that individual stars move in and out of over time. This is the same process that maintains a galaxy's spiral arms, but it is somewhat more mysterious for bars: spiral galaxies seem to form bars in their centres as they mature, accounting for the large number of bars we see today, but can also lose them later on as the accumulated mass along the bar grows unstable. The orbital patterns and the gravitational interactions within a galaxy that sustain the bar also transport matter and energy into it, fuelling star formation. Indeed, the observing programme studying NGC 4731 seeks to investigate this flow of matter in galaxies.Beyond the bar, the spiral arms of NGC 4731 stretch out far past the confines of this close-in Hubble view. The galaxy’s elongated arms are thought to result from gravitational interactions with other, nearby galaxies in the Virgo cluster.[Image Description: A close-in view of a barred spiral galaxy. The bright, glowing bar crosses the centre of the galaxy, with spiral arms curving away from its ends and continuing out of view. It’s surrounded by bright patches of light where stars are forming, as well as dark lines of dust. The galaxy’s clouds of gas spread out from the arms and bar, giving way to a dark background with some foreground stars and small, distant galaxies.] |
Date | 27 May 2024 (upload date) |
Source | The lights of a galactic bar |
Author | ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker |
Other versions |
|
Licensing
![]() ![]() |
ESA/Hubble images, videos and web texts are released by the ESA under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided they are clearly and visibly credited. Detailed conditions are below; see the ESA copyright statement for full information. For images created by NASA or on the hubblesite.org website, or for ESA/Hubble images on the esahubble.org site before 2009, use the {{PD-Hubble}} tag.
Conditions:
Notes:
|
![]() |
![w:en:Creative Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/CC_some_rights_reserved.svg/90px-CC_some_rights_reserved.svg.png)
![attribution](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Cc-by_new_white.svg/24px-Cc-by_new_white.svg.png)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Attribution: ESA/Hubble
- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Captions
This week, an image of the broad and sweeping spiral galaxy NGC 4731 is the Hubble Picture of the Week. This galaxy lies among the galaxies of the Virgo cluster, in the constellation Virgo, and is located 43 million light-years from Earth.
image/jpeg
4,087 pixel
3,971 pixel
8,055,293 byte
845662cf7461d93b1734643e1f8d847622df87d8
27 May 2024
mrs407mzlumw63jg7zcnx1f94e9qhx9tmnnw80uf318lv6vv
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 09:01, 27 May 2024 | ![]() | 3,971 × 4,087 (7.68 MB) | OptimusPrimeBot | #Spacemedia - Upload of https://cdn.esahubble.org/archives/images/large/potw2422a.jpg via Commons:Spacemedia |
File usage
The following pages on the English Wikipedia use this file (pages on other projects are not listed):
Global file usage
The following other wikis use this file:
- Usage on de.wikipedia.org
Metadata
This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it.
If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.
Horizontal resolution | 72 dpi |
---|---|
Vertical resolution | 72 dpi |
Color space | Uncalibrated |
Image width | 3,971 px |
Image height | 4,087 px |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop 25.4 (Windows) |
Date and time of digitizing | 12:45, 19 February 2024 |
File change date and time | 01:58, 27 May 2024 |
Date metadata was last modified | 01:58, 27 May 2024 |
Unique ID of original document | xmp.did:c321e96b-dbfe-e548-809e-f3821c438f2e |