While the James Webb Space Telescope has been receiving a lot of press lately, its predecessor Hubble Space Telescope It continues to impress this time from the galaxy NGC 6956, a near-perfect example of an abstract galaxy located about 214 million light-years from Earth.
Barred galaxies, which derive their name from a very prominent “bar”. stars that cut through the galactic nucleus, are among the most numerous types galaxies in the known universe, They make up an estimated 70% of all galaxies (Opens in a new tab). Ribbon structures are also more common in galaxies with active galactic cores, as gas and other material is fed toward the galactic core along these bars.
this process It ultimately helps destabilize the tape (Opens in a new tab)However, as more mass is funneled into the galactic core, the more unstable the bar becomes, which eventually causes the bar to soften into the more traditional spiral configuration – Like NGC 2985 (Opens in a new tab) – which most people think of when they think of a file spiral galaxy.
Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope pictures of all time!
according to Image description by NASA (Opens in a new tab)This latest image of NGC 6956 was for a look at Cepheid variable stars, which are stars whose luminosity ranges from bright to dim at regular intervals. These periods of brightness and dimming are directly related to the actual brightness of the star, we are able to account for these differences in the apparent brightness of the actual brightness of the stars, which allows us to determine their distance from us.
This is an important way for astronomers to determine the distance of extragalactic objects like NGC 6956, since there are few other ways we currently know of to do this. There are other interesting features in NGC 6956, such as the visible Type Ia Supernovawhich is the product of the explosion of a white dwarf star as a result of the accumulation of material from a companion star.
This type of supernova is another major way to determine the distance of distant galaxies, since astronomers are able to measure how quickly a supernova is dimming to help measure its distance from Earth. And while filling in a galaxy map in an accurate way is useful in itself, repeated measurements of the distance of these extragalactic objects are an important tool for understanding the current rate of expansion of the universe.
