Hubble went supernova looking — and located one thing surprising: Space picture of the week

Here’s a narrative for the ages — or perhaps a narrative of the ages.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s newest picture, of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6000, is wealthy in yellow at its middle and blue on its outskirts, but it surely’s what these colours reveal concerning the ages, lots and temperatures of the galaxy’s stars that makes the portrait actually fascinating.

The yellow tells the story of the center of NGC 6000, where stars are old, small and relatively cool. These stars have been shining for billions of years. In astronomy, cool stars are red, while the hottest stars are blue. The latter dominate the outskirts of this galaxy, where its spiral arms are filled with stars that are younger, hotter and larger. These stars are cosmic newborns.

The image, which is also available as a panning video, was produced whereas Hubble looked for supernova explosions — therefore the unfinished framing. The ageing house telescope focused the faint glow of supernovas known as SN 2007ch and SN 2010as, stars that exploded in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

However, whereas imaging NGC 6000, Hubble additionally captured one thing else totally. Look on the right-hand facet of the picture, and 4 faint damaged strains will be seen — the trail of an asteroid that drifted throughout Hubble’s subject of view because it took 4 long-exposure photographs of NGC 6000. The damaged strains are pink and blue as a result of Hubble used pink and blue filters to gather seen gentle, which makes it simpler for astronomers to check stars by their colours.

Although it’s within the constellation Scorpius, which is seen in summer time from the Northern Hemisphere, NGC 6000 lies south of the celestial equator, in response to The Sky Live. That means it’s extra simply seen from the Southern Hemisphere. However, to glimpse it requires at the least a 10-inch aperture telescope and a darkish sky.

For extra chic house photographs, try our Space Photo of the Week archives.