NASA Hubble Space Telescope Snaps An Irregular Galaxy

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has done it yet again. The famous telescope has chronicled an irregular galaxy called IC 10, a member of the Local Group. A Local Group comprises of over 50 galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood that includes the Milky Way.

What makes the IC 10 different is that it is closest to the starbust galaxy which means that it is witnessing huge star formation which is powered by ample supplies of cool hydrogen gas. This gas turns into cast molecular clouds after condensation, which then forms into dense knots where pressures trigger nuclear fusion, thus forming new stars.

As an irregular galaxy, IC 10 lacks the shape of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. It also doesn't have the rounded, ethereal shape of elliptical galaxies. The galaxy is approximately 2.2 million light years away. It was discovered by American astronomer Lewis Swift back in 1887.

However, the galaxy still remains one of the difficult topics to study, because it's location is in line-of-sight which has a lot of cosmic dust and stars.

Recently, Hubble also captured a breathtaking image of the NGC 7773 galaxy which is located 357 million light years away from our planet in the Pegasus constellation. The galaxy is similar to our Milky Way, as it is also a barred spiral galaxy. A bar of bright light in the center of the galaxy is visible. It is basically a structure of gas and dust where star formation occurs.

Hubble used its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFCS3) which was installed on the telescope in 2009 and has produced some stunning images in the past. The instrument is responsible for over 240,000 observations, making it the most used tools on the space telescope.

Last month, Hubble also captured new star formation from a collision of two galaxies. Both galaxies surpassed each other millions of years ago and are now 24,000 light-years apart. The gravitational pull among the two created ripples of higher-density gas and dust with both galaxies. This process also triggered the formation of new stars.