Face-on starburst spiral galaxy MCG+07-33-027 lies 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Hercules. Click the image for a full-size version. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and N. Grogin (STScI).This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and shows a starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. This galaxy lies some 300 million light-years away from us, and is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst. Normal galaxies produce only a couple of new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce a hundred times more than that! As MCG+07-33-027 is seen face-on, the galaxy’s spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible and easy for astronomers to study.
In order to form newborn stars, the parent galaxy has to hold a large reservoir of gas, which is slowly depleted to spawn stars over time. For galaxies in a state of starburst, this intense period of star formation has to be triggered somehow — often this happens due to a collision with another galaxy. MCG+07-33-027, however, is special; while many galaxies are located within a large cluster of galaxies, MCG+07-33-027 is a field galaxy, which means it is rather isolated. Thus, the triggering of the starburst was most likely not due to a collision with a neighbouring or passing galaxy and astronomers are still speculating about the cause.
Comet 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková passes just 0.08318 astronomical units (7.73 million miles, or ~32 lunar distances) from Earth on the morning of 11 February. Early risers can catch the magnitude +7 comet speeding through the constellations of Hercules, Corona Borealis (CrB) and Boötes at up to 9 degrees/day.
NGC 247 is a relatively small spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale), part of the Sculptor Group around 11 million light-years from us. NGC 247 displays one particularly unusual and mysterious feature — an apparent void in the usual swarm of stars and H II regions in the northern part of its disc that spans almost a third of the galaxy’s total length.
Beams from rotating neutron stars – pulsars – are normally seen in X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. The Hubble Space Telescope has now seen unusual infrared emissions, possibly from “pulsar winds” or surrounding dust.
