Although the James Webb Space Telescope has gotten a lot of press lately, its predecessor Hubble Space Telescope continue to impress; This time of galaxy NGC 6956 is a perfect example of a barred galaxy located about 214 million light-years from Earth.
Bar galaxies get their name from the very prominent “bar”. stars Interspersing the galactic core is among the most common types galaxies in the known universe, making up about 70% of all galaxies (opens in new tab). Bar structures are more common in galaxies with active galactic nuclei, as gas and other material are fed into the galactic nucleus along these bars.
This process ultimately helping to destabilize the bar (opens in new tab)However, the more mass transferred to the galactic core, the more unstable the bar becomes, eventually turning the bar into a more traditional spiral formation – Like NGC 2985 (opens in new tab) – what most people think of when they think of it spiral galaxy.
Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time!
according to Image description by NASA (opens in new tab)This latest photo of NGC 6956 was a Cepheid view changing stars, are stars whose brightness alternates between bright and faint at regular intervals. These periods of brightening and dimming are directly related to the star’s true brightness, and we can calculate these changes to the stars’ true brightness, which allows us to determine their distance from us.
This is a very important way for astronomers to determine the distance of extragalactic objects like NGC 6956, as there are few other ways that we currently know of. NGC 6956 also has other interesting features, such as visible Type Ia supernovait is the product of a white dwarf star that exploded as a result of the accretion of matter from a companion star.
This type of supernova is another key way to determine the distance to distant galaxies, because astronomers can measure how quickly the supernova dims to help measure its distance from Earth. Although accurately filling in a galaxy map is useful in itself, re-measurement of the distance of these extragalactic objects is an important tool for understanding the current velocity. expansion in the universe.
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