The Flickr Activegalaxy Image Generatr

A striking orange and blue streak fills this new image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble’s visible and infrared capabilities captured this edge-on view of lenticular galaxy NGC 612. Lenticular galaxies have a central bulge and disk much like spiral galaxies, but they lack the characteristic arms. They typically have older star populations and little ongoing star formation. In NGC 612, dust and cool hydrogen gas make up the majority of the galactic disc, the plane of matter we see in orange and dark red. This galaxy appears in the Sculptor constellation and is easily visible from Earth’s southern hemisphere.

NGC 612 is an active galaxy, which means that its center appears more than 100 times brighter than the combined light of its stars. It is also a Seyfert galaxy, the most common type of active galaxy. Seyfert galaxies emit large amounts of infrared radiation despite looking normal in visible light. NGC 612 is a Type II Seyfert, which means matter near the center of the galaxy moves rather calmly around the nucleus. The stars in this galaxy are unusually young, with ages around 40 to 100 million years.

NGC 612 is also an extremely rare example of a non-elliptical radio galaxy, a type of galaxy that shows significant radio emissions – in this case, an association with radio source PKS 0131-36. Astronomers have only discovered five such radio-emitting lenticular galaxies in the universe. One theory attributes NGC 612’s unusual radio emissions to a past interaction with a companion spiral galaxy. Another theory focuses on the galaxy’s bright and dominant bulge, which is similar to those seen in elliptical radio galaxies. By imaging this galaxy, astronomers hope to uncover more about what causes galaxies to emit radio waves.

British astronomer John Herschel discovered NGC 612 in 1837. It is about 400 million light-years from Earth and has a mass of around 1.1 trillion times that of our Sun.

Credit: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, ESA, A. Barth (University of California - Irvine), and B. Boizelle (Brigham Young University) ; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

For more on Hubble's Galaxies, visit: science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/hubble-news/hubbles-galax...

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Centaurus A
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(remote data set)

AR: 201,385° DEC: -43,061°
NGC 5128 or Centaurus A is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth at a distance of approximately 12 million light-years. It has a distinctive central dust lane and an active galactic nucleus containing a supermassive black hole creating a relativistic jet which emits in visual, radio and X-ray wavelengths.
It is an unusual galaxy, possibly the result of a merger between an elliptical galaxy and a smaller spiral galaxy.

This Hubble Space Telescope image of the heart of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole.

Astronomers suggest that a ring of dusty material surrounding the black hole may be casting its shadow into space.

According to their scenario, this interplay of light and shadow may occur when light blasted by the monster black hole strikes the dust ring, which is buried deep inside the core. Light streams through gaps in the ring, creating the brilliant cone-shaped rays. However, denser patches in the disk block some of the light, casting long, dark shadows through the galaxy.

This phenomenon is similar to sunlight piercing our Earthly clouds at sunset, creating a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows formed by beams of light scattered by the atmosphere.

However, the bright rays and dark shadows appearing in IC 5063 are happening on a vastly larger scale, shooting across at least 36,000 light-years.\

IC 5063 resides 156 million light-years from Earth.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI and W.P. Maksym (CfA)

For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2020/news-2020-58

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This illustration depicts one possible explanation for mysterious bright rays and dark shadows observed emanating from the blazingly bright center of nearby active galaxy IC 5063.

In this scenario, a dusty disk surrounding the monster black hole is casting its shadow into space, which is interspersed with bright rays that are leaking through gaps in the disk. The shadows and rays extend from both sides of the disk, seen edge-on in this view. A black hole, which is hidden inside the disk, is surrounded by superheated infalling gas—the source of the bright core. The optical effect is similar to beams of sunlight shining though scattered clouds near sunset.

As seen from Earth, the disk is perpendicular to powerful high-speed jets of plasma that shoot out of the black hole and do not smash into the disk.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI)

For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2020/news-2020-58

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"Can I even shoot this?" was the question I asked myself.

Galaxies are tough targets. Their light is diffuse, and you usually need longer exposures to bring out any sort of detail. This galaxy was only 12° off the true horizon when I was imaging it, and even closer to the visible horizon due to mountains to the south. (I was near Juliian, CA.) Guiding wasn't great, but the skies were so clear and relatively free of light pollution. I had to try.

This is the closest galaxy to ours that shows strong activity in the nucleus. In X-rays, it shows a prominent jet of radiation from relativistic particles. In radio waves, it has two huge lobes in the sky. This is from 20 minutes (10 2 minute exposures) in visible light with an Atik 314L+ color CCD attached to a HyperStar lens on a Celestron Edge HD 925. Guiding was iffy due to wind and the low altitude. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; stacking and processing in PixInsight; final processing in Photoshop.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy ESO 021-G004. Inverted grayscale variant.

Original caption: This swirling mass of celestial gas, dust, and stars is a moderately luminous spiral galaxy named ESO 021-G004, located just under 130 million light-years away. This galaxy has something known as an active galactic nucleus. While this phrase sounds complex, this simply means that astronomers measure a lot of radiation at all wavelengths coming from the centre of the galaxy. This radiation is generated by material falling inwards into the very central region of ESO 021-G004, and meeting the behemoth lurking there — a supermassive black hole. As material falls towards this black hole it is dragged into orbit as part of an accretion disc; it becomes superheated as it swirls around and around, emitting characteristic high-energy radiation until it is eventually devoured. The data comprising this image were gathered by the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy ESO 021-G004. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: This swirling mass of celestial gas, dust, and stars is a moderately luminous spiral galaxy named ESO 021-G004, located just under 130 million light-years away. This galaxy has something known as an active galactic nucleus. While this phrase sounds complex, this simply means that astronomers measure a lot of radiation at all wavelengths coming from the centre of the galaxy. This radiation is generated by material falling inwards into the very central region of ESO 021-G004, and meeting the behemoth lurking there — a supermassive black hole. As material falls towards this black hole it is dragged into orbit as part of an accretion disc; it becomes superheated as it swirls around and around, emitting characteristic high-energy radiation until it is eventually devoured. The data comprising this image were gathered by the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy ESO 021-G004. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: This swirling mass of celestial gas, dust, and stars is a moderately luminous spiral galaxy named ESO 021-G004, located just under 130 million light-years away. This galaxy has something known as an active galactic nucleus. While this phrase sounds complex, this simply means that astronomers measure a lot of radiation at all wavelengths coming from the centre of the galaxy. This radiation is generated by material falling inwards into the very central region of ESO 021-G004, and meeting the behemoth lurking there — a supermassive black hole. As material falls towards this black hole it is dragged into orbit as part of an accretion disc; it becomes superheated as it swirls around and around, emitting characteristic high-energy radiation until it is eventually devoured. The data comprising this image were gathered by the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy ESO 021-G004.

Original caption: This swirling mass of celestial gas, dust, and stars is a moderately luminous spiral galaxy named ESO 021-G004, located just under 130 million light-years away. This galaxy has something known as an active galactic nucleus. While this phrase sounds complex, this simply means that astronomers measure a lot of radiation at all wavelengths coming from the centre of the galaxy. This radiation is generated by material falling inwards into the very central region of ESO 021-G004, and meeting the behemoth lurking there — a supermassive black hole. As material falls towards this black hole it is dragged into orbit as part of an accretion disc; it becomes superheated as it swirls around and around, emitting characteristic high-energy radiation until it is eventually devoured. The data comprising this image were gathered by the Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 3256, classified as active and peculiar. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both installed on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the peculiar galaxy NGC 3256. The galaxy is about 100 million light-years from Earth and is the result of a past galactic merger, which created its distorted appearance. As such, NGC 3256 provides an ideal target to investigate starbursts that have been triggered by galaxy mergers. Another image of NGC 3256 was already released in 2008, as part of a collection of interacting galaxies, created for Hubble’s 18th birthday.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 3256, classified as active and peculiar.

Original caption: This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both installed on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the peculiar galaxy NGC 3256. The galaxy is about 100 million light-years from Earth and is the result of a past galactic merger, which created its distorted appearance. As such, NGC 3256 provides an ideal target to investigate starbursts that have been triggered by galaxy mergers. Another image of NGC 3256 was already released in 2008, as part of a collection of interacting galaxies, created for Hubble’s 18th birthday.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 3256, classified as active and peculiar. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), both installed on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the peculiar galaxy NGC 3256. The galaxy is about 100 million light-years from Earth and is the result of a past galactic merger, which created its distorted appearance. As such, NGC 3256 provides an ideal target to investigate starbursts that have been triggered by galaxy mergers. Another image of NGC 3256 was already released in 2008, as part of a collection of interacting galaxies, created for Hubble’s 18th birthday.

Out of this world public domain images from NASA. All original images and many more can be found from the NASA Image Library

Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/418580/nasa

The striking face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6814 is located in the constellation Aquila. Its luminous nucleus and spectacular sweeping arms, rippled with an intricate pattern of dark dust, are captured in this image from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

NGC 6814 has an extremely bright nucleus, a telltale sign that it is a Seyfert galaxy. These galaxies have very active centers that can emit strong bursts of radiation. The luminous heart of NGC 6814 is a highly variable source of X-ray radiation, causing scientists to suspect that it hosts a supermassive black hole with a mass about 18 million times that of the Sun.

As NGC 6814 is a very active galaxy, many regions of ionized gas are studded along its spiral arms. In these large clouds of gas, a burst of star formation has recently taken place, forging the brilliant blue stars that are visible scattered throughout the galaxy.

For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1619a/

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA;
Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt

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Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured this detailed view of the remarkable galaxy NGC 1433. A barred spiral with a double ring structure, NGC 1433 is a member of the Dorado Group of galaxies found in the skies of the Earth’s southern hemisphere.

NGC 1433 is also classified as a Seyfert galaxy. These have very bright, luminous centers — made so by the interaction of material with a supermassive black hole anchored at their cores. NGC 1433 is being studied as part of a survey of 50 nearby galaxies known as the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS).

For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1427a/

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA;
Acknowledgments: D. Calzetti (UMass) and the LEGUS Team

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Galaxy NGC 2768 is located at a distance of about 65 million light-years and found in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is a Seyfert galaxy, meaning one with an extremely compact and luminous center whose spectra is bright with highly ionized emission lines. Called an “active” galaxy, NGC 2768 likely has one, and possibly two large black holes at its center. An intricate network of dusty knots and filaments is observational evidence that NGC 2768 suffered a collision with another galaxy whose stars have largely been absorbed into its body, but whose gas and dust orbits the center separately.

For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/image/3618/news_release/2015-28

Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Foley (University of Illinois)

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Galaxy NGC 7742 in the constellation Pegasus is by no means a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy, as revealed in this Hubble image. Instead, the galaxy contains a bright, yellow core surrounded by concentric rings of immense, blue star clusters. When examined with a spectroscope, the core of NGC 7742 is shown to contain strong emission lines, the indication of high-energy physical processes at work there. In fact, with its particular type of active galactic nucleus, NGC 7742 is classified as a Seyfert 2 active galaxy, one that is probably powered by a black hole residing in its core.

The galaxy’s brightest stellar ring is about 3,000 light-years from the core. Tightly wound spiral arms are also faintly visible. Surrounding the inner ring is a wispy band of material, which is probably the remains of a once very active stellar breeding ground.

For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/image/696/

Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)

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Edited Chandra Space Telescope PR image of the galaxy Markarian 1018 which has a very bright (in x-rays) black hole near the center. I didn't add the image of the x-rays from the black hole as it's a purple circle...

The irregular galaxy is a strong radio source (a "Seifert galaxy") and shows large jets in x-ray and radio wavelengths. The velocity of these jets has been found to reach half of the speed of light. They are the result of mater being spun away from the region closely surrounding a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

It is speculated that this oddly formed galaxy is the result of a collision between a large elliptical galaxy and a smaller spiral galaxy.

This image was captured with a 20" f/4.5 remotely controlled telescope at Siding Spring, Australia.

A jet of matter is slamming into and compressing gas in the galaxy Cen A, which is collapsing to form stars.

Image credits: ESO