The NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a nearby galaxy with "two hearts."
The image was taken of a galaxy known as the Southern Pinwheel, which is about 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra. The galaxy is filled with vibrant hues of magentas and blues. (Pictured in above photo)
"The Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and "ghosts" of dead stars called supernova remnants. The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death spread across 50,000 light-years," according to a news release.
"The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark spiral dust lanes. These brilliant young stellar groupings, only a few million years old, produce huge amounts of ultraviolet light that is absorbed by surrounding diffuse gas clouds, causing them to glow in pinkish hydrogen light."
The image is being used for a citizen science project titled STAR DATE: M83. The goal is to estimate the age of the star clusters found in the Southern Pinwheel.
"The citizen scientists will 'explore' the image, identifying a variety of objects ranging from background galaxies to supernova remnants to foreground stars," according to the news release.
Scientist will be looking at the presence or absence of the pink hydrogen emission, the color of the clusters, and more to figure out the age.
"Interstellar 'bubbles' produced by nearly 300 supernovas from massive stars have been found in this Hubble image," according to a news release. "By studying these supernova remnants, astronomers can better understand the nature of the stars that exploded and dispersed nuclear processed chemical elements back into the galaxy, contributing to the next generation of new stars."
Check out more information about the galaxy with two hearts here.
