Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) took a beautiful picture of the central part of the spiral galaxy NGC 2217.
This Hubble image shows the central region of NGC 2217, a spiral galaxy about 83 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. This image consists of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the optical part of the spectrum. It was stained with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). Image Credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
NGC 2217 is located approximately 83 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major.
This galaxy, also known as LEDA 18883, AM 0619-271 and ESO 489-42, was discovered on 20 January 1835 by the English astronomer John Herschel.
NGC 2217 is the central component of a concentration of galaxies called the NGC 2217 group.
“This spiral galaxy is similar to our Milky Way for about 100,000 light-years,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Many stars are concentrated in the central region and form the light bar, surrounded by a set of tightly wound spiral arms.”
“The central bar in these types of galaxies plays an important role in their evolution and helps direct gas from the disk into the center of the galaxy,” the researchers explained.
“The transported gas and dust are then formed into new stars or fed into the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy.”
“With a weight of a few hundred to more than a billion times the mass of our sun, supermassive black holes are present in almost all major galaxies.”