NASA's Hubble telescope spots 'dreamy' galaxy

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured an incredible dream-like image of a galaxy 73 million light-years from Earth. 

The galaxy is known as NGC 3156 and is located in the minor equatorial constellation Sextans. It was discovered on December 13, 1784, by astronomer William Herschel. 

NGC 3156 is a lenticular galaxy, with two visible threads of dark reddish-brown dust crossing the galaxy’s disk. 

This galaxy type is named for its lens-like appearance when viewed from the side or edge-on. 

Lenticular galaxies fall somewhere between elliptical and spiral galaxies and have properties similar to both. 

This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope shows the lenticular galaxy NGC 3156, 'lenticular' meaning that it falls somewhere between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy https://t.co/VltsbqLjM5 pic.twitter.com/yNuxupQfQK

— ESA (@esa) September 11, 2023

What is a lenticular galaxy?

Like spirals, lenticulars have a central bulge of stars surrounded by a large disc. They often have dark dust lanes like spirals, but do not have large-scale spiral arms. 

Like ellipticals, lenticular galaxies have mostly older stars with little ongoing star formation and no significant hydrogen emission.

“Astronomers have studied NGC 3156 in many ways – from its cohort of globular clusters (roughly spherical groups of stars bound together by their gravitational attraction), to the stars being destroyed by the supermassive black hole at its heart,” NASA shared in a post on their website. 

Using data collected from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers were able to compare stars near the galaxy’s core to those in galaxies with similarly sized black holes and found that NGC 3156 has a higher-than-average percentage of stars devoured by its supermassive black hole than its counterparts.