The Hubble Space Telescope, operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States, has captured clear images of the spiral galaxy NGC 4731, revealing detailed features such as its bright bar structure.
NASA released this image on May 31. The agency noted that NGC 4731 is a broad spiral galaxy located in the direction of Virgo, approximately 43 million light-years away from Earth.
This highly detailed image is composed of data obtained from six different filters. The rich colors in the image display the galaxy’s wave-like gas clouds, dark dusty lanes, bright pink star-forming regions, and most notably, a luminous elongated structure with trailing arms.
Barred spiral galaxies make up around 60% of all galaxies, surpassing the combined count of regular spiral and elliptical galaxies. The visible bar structure is the result of stars and gas in the galaxy aligning in orbit together. They form a dense region where individual stars move in and out over time.
While the process of maintaining spiral arms in galaxies is understood, the formation of bar structures is somewhat mysterious. Barred spiral galaxies seem to develop these structures at their centers during maturity, leading to the abundance of barred galaxies observed today. However, if the mass near the bar structure becomes unstable, these structures can disappear.
The orbital patterns and gravitational interactions within galaxies maintain bar structures, while also transporting material and energy within the galaxy, facilitating star formation. In fact, the observation project of NGC 4731 aims to study this material flow within the galaxy.
Beyond the bar structure, the spiral arms of NGC 4731 extend far beyond the close-up view of the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers believe that the elongated arms of this galaxy are the result of gravitational interactions with other neighboring galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.
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