Discovered by William Herschel in 1783, NGC 3274 is a magnitude +12.8 galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo bordering on Leo Minor. The galaxy PGC 213714 is also visible on the upper right of the frame, located some 1.3 billion light-years from Earth. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti.This image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3274 comes courtesy of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Hubble’s WFC3 vision spreads from the ultraviolet light through to the near infrared, allowing astronomers to study a wide range of targets, from nearby star formation through to galaxies in the most remote regions of the cosmos.
This particular image combines observations gathered in five different filters, bringing together ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light to show off NGC 3274 in all its glory. As with all of the data Hubble sends back to Earth, it takes advantage of the telescope’s location in space above our planet’s distorting atmosphere. WFC3 returns clear, crisp, and detailed images time after time.
NGC 3274 is a relatively faint galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1783. The galaxy PGC 213714 is also visible on the upper right of the frame, located much further away from Earth.
The most luminous galaxy known in the universe — the quasar W2246-0526, seen when the universe was less than 10 percent of its current age — is so turbulent that it is in the process of ejecting its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA).
Around half of the star formation in the local universe arises from minor mergers between galaxies, according to data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Disruptions to the shapes of spiral galaxies, caused by interactions with their smallest neighbours, points to increased star formation. Evidence suggests that minor galactic mergers are therefore important drivers of galaxy evolution.
