Hubble captures a cosmic sea monster with this image of a jellyfish galaxy

By Georgina Torbet March 5, 2023

This week’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a special and delightful cosmic object: a jellyfish galaxy. These galaxies are named for their larger main body with tendrils that float along after them, like the sea creatures.

This particular jellyfish galaxy is called JO201, and is located in the constellation of Cetus. Appropriately for the sea theme, Cetus is a constellation named after a Greek mythological sea monster that sometimes had the body of a whale or serpent along with the head of a boar. In the image, you can see the main body of the galaxy in the center, with the trailing tendrils spreading down toward the bottom of the frame.

A jellyfish galaxy with trailing tentacles of stars hangs in inky blackness in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As Jellyfish galaxies move through intergalactic space they are slowly stripped of gas, which trails behind the galaxy in tendrils illuminated by clumps of star formation. These blue tendrils are visible drifting below the core of this galaxy, and give it its jellyfish-like appearance. This particular jellyfish galaxy — known as JO201 — lies in the constellation Cetus, which is named after a sea monster from ancient Greek mythology. This sea-monster-themed constellation adds to the nautical theme of this image. — A jellyfish galaxy with trailing tentacles of stars hangs in inky blackness in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gullieuszik

Jellyfish galaxies are formed due to an effect called ram-pressure stripping, in which the gravity of other nearby objects like galaxies or galaxy clusters acts like a headwind, moving dust and gas from the galaxy and stripping it in some regions. This process can slow star formation in the galaxy as there is no longer enough dust or gas available to form new stars, and can even cause the eventual death of the galaxy in question.

This image was taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument looking in both the optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, in order to pick out all the important features of the galaxy, its dust and gas, and its tendrils. It was taken as part of research into jellyfish galaxies and how star formation occurs within them.

“This particular observation comes from an investigation into the sizes, masses, and ages of the clumps of star formation in the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies,” Hubble scientists write. “Astronomers hope that this will provide a breakthrough in understanding the connection between ram-pressure stripping — the process that creates the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies — and star formation.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

Hubble scientists create tool for erasing satellite trails from images

This image captures the streak of an Earth-orbiting artificial satellite crossing Hubble's field of view during an observation of "The Mice" interacting galaxies (NGC 4676). A typical satellite trail is very thin and will affect less than 0.5% of a single Hubble exposure. Though in this case the satellite overlaps a portion of the target galaxy, the observation quality is not affected. That's because multiple exposures are taken of the same target. And the satellite trail is not in other frames. Developers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, have software that identifies the bad pixels from the satellite photobombing, the extent to which they affect the image, and then flags them. When flagged, scientists can recover the full field of view. Even as the number of satellites increases over the decade, these tools for cleaning the images will still be applicable.

With ever-increasing numbers of satellites in the sky, astronomers have repeatedly expressed worry over how these satellites could impact scientific research. Earlier this year, a study of Hubble Space Telescope observations showed how some images were being ruined by streaks of light coming from satellites -- and while only a small percentage of Hubble images were affected, the authors raised concerns that with the projected number of satellites set to explode in the next decade, the problem could become serious.

Now, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which runs Hubble, have come up with a tool to deal with satellite streaks in Hubble images. "We developed a new tool to identify satellite trails that is an improvement over the previous satellite software because it is much more sensitive. So we think it will be better for identifying and removing satellite trails in Hubble images," said Dave Stark of STScI in a statement.

Space

Peer inside the bar of a barred spiral galaxy in new James Webb image

A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, whose bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

The newest image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning display of dust and stars that form the bar of the barred spiral galaxy NCG 5068, located 17 million light-years away. Like our galaxy, the Milky Way, this galaxy has a central bar that is a more concentrated region of stars and dust compared to the arms that reach out from the galaxy's center.

The image was taken using two of Webb's instruments, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). By looking in both the mid- and near-infrared wavelengths, Webb is able to pick out features like the swirls of dust and gas, as well as the stars in this region, with the bar of the galaxy glowing in the top left of the image.

Space

Horrifying up-close images of a sunspot captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope

This image reveals the fine structures of a sunspot in the photosphere. Within the dark, central area of the sunspot’s umbra, small-scale bright dots, known as umbral dots, are seen. The elongated structures surrounding the umbra are visible as bright-headed strands known as penumbral filaments. Umbra: Dark, central region of a sunspot where the magnetic field is strongest. Penumbra: The brighter, surrounding region of a sunspot’s umbra characterized by bright filamentary structures.

A stunning new set of images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope shows the surface of the sun in incredible detail -- including frankly disturbing images of sunspots seen up close. The images have been collected over the telescope's first year of operations and have been shared as a preview of the data that can be expected from this tool.

Located in Maui, Hawai'i, the Inouye Solar Telescope is specifically designed to be able to look at the surface of the sun to learn about its magnetic fields, which are important for understanding the space weather which is caused by solar eruptions. The newly released images show calmer, quieter areas of the sun's surface and the deep black of sunspots, which are temporary dark regions that periodically appear on the surface, or photosphere.