Hubble Spots a Bright Bar of Light – What Is It?

NGC 2217

This bright bar of light captured by the Hubble Space Telescope is the magnificent central bar of NGC 2217, a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Canis Major. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

The magnificent central bar of NGC 2217 (also known as AM 0619-271) shines bright in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog), in this new image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Roughly 65 million light-years from Earth, this barred spiral galaxy is a similar size to our Milky Way at 100 thousand light-years across. Many stars are concentrated in its central region forming the luminous bar, surrounded by a set of tightly wound spiral arms.

The central bar in these types of galaxies plays an important role in their evolution, helping to funnel gas from the disc into the middle of the galaxy. The transported gas and dust are then either formed into new stars or fed to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. Weighing from a few hundred to over a billion times the mass of our Sun, supermassive black holes are present in almost all large galaxies.

This image was colorized with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).

Canis Major IAU

Canis Major chart. Credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg) CC BY 3.0

1 Comment on "Hubble Spots a Bright Bar of Light – What Is It?"

  1. Dear SciTechDaily, Why do you include the map of Canis Major without locating the object on it? Demote your content editors… or perhaps, rewrite them.

Leave a comment

Email address is optional. If provided, your email will not be published or shared.