NASA’s Hubble Telescope Captures Cannibal Galaxy With Violent Secret (Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Leonard)
New Delhi:
Hubble Space Telescope, which belongs to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), has taken an image of a ‘Cannibal Galaxy’. Yes, you read it right. The remarkable spiral galaxy is known as NGC 4651.
In a statement, NASA said that the galaxy NGC 4651 may look serene and peaceful as it swirls in the vast, silent emptiness of space, but don’t be fooled — it keeps a violent secret. “It is believed that this galaxy consumed another smaller galaxy to become the large and beautiful spiral that we observe today,” the US space agency added.
“Although only a telescope like the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which captured this image, could give us a picture this clear, NGC 4651 can also be observed with an amateur telescope — so if you have a telescope at home and a star-gazing eye, look out for this glittering carnivorous spiral,” NASA noted.
This comes days after Hubble spotted the most energetic outflows ever witnessed in the universe. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, the astronomers have detected quasars tsunamis ripping across galaxies. It is to be noted that Quasars are extremely remote celestial objects, emitting exceptionally large amounts of energy. Quasars contain supermassive black holes fueled by infalling matter that can shine 1,000 times brighter than their host galaxies of hundreds of billions of stars.
