Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 678.
UGC 678 is located approximately 260 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces.
Otherwise known as LEDA 3910 and 2MASX J01061402+0334278, this galaxy is almost face on, allowing its lazily winding spiral arms to stretch across the new Hubble image.
In the foreground, a smaller edge-on galaxy seems to bisect the upper portion of UGC 678.
“Just like humans, stars have a natural lifecycle; they are born, grow up, and eventually grow old and die,” the Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“Studying this stellar life cycle — usually referred to as stellar evolution — is an important topic for astronomers.”
“The ends of star lives can be marked by truly spectacular events, including titanic supernova explosions, the creation of unimaginably dense neutron stars, and even the birth of black holes.”
“UGC 678 was recently found to be host to one of these events,” they added.
“In 2020, a robotic telescope scanning the night sky in search of dangerous asteroids discovered evidence of an enormous supernova explosion in the galaxy.”
“Two separate Hubble observations turned to UGC 678 to scour the galaxy in search of the aftermath of its supernova explosion.”
“One team of astronomers used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the other the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).”
“But both aimed to explore UGC 678 in the hope of unearthing clues to the identity of the star that produced the 2020 supernova, also known as ATLAS20bgkm or AT2020abjq.”
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