NGC 3511, a beautifully inclined spiral galaxy 43 million light-years away, has been captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in spectacular detail.
Suspended in the constellation Crater, the galaxy is under scrutiny for its dynamic star-forming regions.
The stunning spiral galaxy NGC 3511 takes center stage in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located about 43 million light-years away in the constellation Crater (The Cup), this galaxy appears elegantly tilted when viewed from Earth’s orbit. Its 70-degree angle offers a dramatic view that’s somewhere between a face-on look at swirling spiral arms and a thin edge-on profile of a galactic disc.
Astronomers are closely examining NGC 3511 as part of a larger study into how stars are born in nearby galaxies. Hubble is capturing detailed images of 55 galaxies using five different filters, each designed to reveal a different color or wavelength of light.
One filter, in particular, allows only a specific shade of red light to pass through. That red glow comes from massive clouds of hydrogen gas, lit up by the intense ultraviolet radiation from newborn stars. In this image, you can see those glowing red clouds scattered across NGC 3511, often wrapped around brilliant blue clusters of young, massive stars. These stars are just a few million years old and shine with several times the brightness of our Sun. Hubble’s data will help astronomers map their distribution and better understand their life cycles.
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