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NASA's Hubble Just Spotted A Massive Eye Lurking In Space
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured the stunning image of a Seyfert galaxy — the uninspiringly named NGC 5728 — whose center is emitting a huge amount of light, but the rest of the galaxy is still clearly visible in all its glory and resembles some sort of a celestial eye. A Seyfert galaxy is characterized by its extremely bright nucleus that emits a tremendous amount of electromagnetic radiation, and also has a supermassive black hole at its center.
Almost 10 percent of all galaxies in the universe are said to fall under the category of Seyfert galaxies, and due to their extremely active radiation activity, they’re also one of the most widely studied topics in the field. A Seyfert galaxy looks like a regular spiral galaxy, but it has an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at the center that has an unusually high luminosity in certain regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Notably, Seyfert galaxies fall under the class of active galaxies, which are known to be the most luminous source of electromagnetic radiation in the Universe.
The NGC 5728, which has been captured in its stunning cosmic form by the revived Hubble telescope, is one such galaxy. It is estimated that the luminosity of a Seyfert galaxy can range between 10^8 and 10^11 solar luminosities, which means its luminosity is as many times as that of the Sun’s luminous output. The image of NGC 5728 was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope that can capture radiation spanning the ultraviolet spectrum and all the way down to the near-infra-red band. In fact, the WFC3 helped spot one of the earliest galaxies ever seen.
Interestingly, NGC 5728 might be emitting light in the visible spectrum as well, but scientists say that the dust surrounding its extremely active center prevents visible light from escaping. Interestingly, scientists recently discovered a ‘ghost galaxy’ that is so devoid of matter — both regular and dark matter — that it allows the spectator to see through it. Moreover, the aforementioned Seyfert galaxy is emitting radiation in more electromagnetic bands than just the ultraviolet-visible-infrared region, but the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is not capable of imaging in those regions.
Discovered in 1787 by British astronomer Sir Frederick William Herschel, NGC 5728 is said to have a mass 72 billion times higher than that of the Sun. The galaxy captured in the image above is known to show evidence of star formation, but due to the scarcity of molecular gas around the center, no star formation is observed here. As per recent research, scientists proposed that star formation in a galaxy stops when it runs out of cold gas that acts as a fuel for the cosmic process.
