New Delhi: NASA has tweeted out a beautiful image of barred spiral galaxy NGC 4394 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble spies barred spiral galaxy situated about 55 million light-years from Earth.https://t.co/DzEn6Fp9oy pic.twitter.com/wCu8MAyI2z
— Hubble (@NASA_Hubble) May 6, 2016
Discovered in 1784 by the German-British astronomer William Herschel, NGC 4394 is situated about 55 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy lies in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) and is considered to be a member of the Virgo Cluster.
At the center of NGC 4394 lies a region of ionized gas known as a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER). LINERs are active regions that display a characteristic set of emission lines in their spectra - mostly from weakly ionized atoms of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur, explains NASA.
The observatory, which is 13.3 meters (43.5 feet) long - the length of a large school bus, is the observatory, is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space, the ultimate mountaintop. Hubble has made more than 1.2 million observations since its mission began in 1990.
