Photo of the day: spiral galaxy with a supermassive black hole
The NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope continues to delight with magnificent images of the Universe. Today’s Image of the Week features a mesmerizing photograph of NGC 1365.
The named structure is a barred spiral galaxy located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax.
At the center of NGC 1365 is a supermassive black hole. Such formations can have a mass from 10 5 to 10 11 solar masses. In addition, a number of supernovae are observed in the galaxy.
The above image clearly shows the characteristic structure of spiral galaxies – in this case, with spiral arms twisting counterclockwise. Bright light blue zones are areas containing a large number of young stars.
This image was obtained as part of a scientific project involving the observation of the universe using two observatories – “Hubble” and the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA).
