This image, taken by astronomers utilizing the United States Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSFs NOIRLab, catches the galaxy NGC 1566 as it twirls, flinging its arms through the vastness of space. Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, this spiral nebula is frequently studied by astronomers finding out about galaxy groups, stars of different ages, and stellar black holes. Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/ DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/ NSF/AURA, Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSFs NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSFs NOIRLab), M. Zamani & & D. de Martin (NSFs NOIRLab).
Dark Energy Camera records a chest of celestial phenomena in one shot.
This image, taken by astronomers utilizing the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSFs NOIRLab, catches the galaxy NGC 1566 as it twirls, flinging its arms through the vastness of area. Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, this spiral galaxy is frequently studied by astronomers discovering galaxy groups, stars of various ages, and stellar black holes.
Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, this spiral galaxy is often studied by astronomers learning about galaxy groups, stars of different ages, and galactic black holes. NGC 1566 is the brightest member, and one of three dominant members, of a collection of galaxies understood as the Dorado Group, another member of which is NGC 1515. Galaxy groups are collections of fewer than 50 galaxies, loosely held together by the gravitational pull that each applies on the others. The image was taken for the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a task moneyed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and National Science Foundation (NSF) which aims to find the nature of dark energy by mapping millions of galaxies. NGC 1566 and eighteen other neighboring galaxies will be observed in infrared light with NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by Gemini Observatorys Chief Scientist, NOIRLab astronomer Janice Lee, as part of the PHANGS job.
The center of NGC 1566 is controlled by a supermassive black hole. The extremely luminous and distinct nucleus of the galaxy is referred to as an active galactic nucleus. The light from the nucleus changes on timescales of only hundreds of days, making its specific classification tough for astronomers.
NGC 1566 is the brightest member, and one of 3 dominant members, of a collection of galaxies known as the Dorado Group, another member of which is NGC 1515. Galaxy groups are collections of fewer than 50 galaxies, loosely held together by the gravitational pull that each puts in on the others.
The image was considered the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a job funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and National Science Foundation (NSF) which intends to discover the nature of dark energy by mapping countless galaxies. The Dark Energy Survey is a cooperation of more than 400 scientists from 26 organizations in seven nations. This image was captured using an electronic camera specifically created for the DES: the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). Among the highest-performance, wide-field CCD imagers on the planet, DECam was run by the DOE and NSF in between 2013 and 2019. DECam was moneyed by the DOE and was constructed and evaluated at DOEs Fermilab. Presently DECam is used for programs covering a substantial range of science.
The galaxy imagined here continues to captivate astronomers. NGC 1566 and eighteen other nearby galaxies will be observed in infrared light with NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by Gemini Observatorys Chief Scientist, NOIRLab astronomer Janice Lee, as part of the PHANGS job. This project will make observations of galaxies that can be seen face-on from Earth, and will make the most of JWSTs capability to translucent gas and dust to examine stars in their earliest stages of formation.
Found in the constellation Dorado and lying around 70 million light-years away, NGC 1566 is a grand-design spiral nebula with two arms that appear to wind around the galactic core, similar to the arms of a dancer as they spin around and around in a furious twirl. This image was taken from Chile at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSFs NOIRLab, utilizing the Dark Energy Camera. The galaxys face-on view to us, its place, and its composition make it a chest of observational chances for astronomers throughout numerous fields of astronomy.
NGC 1566 is house to stars at all phases of excellent evolution. In this image, the brilliant blue color that lays out the arms of the galaxy develops from young, brightly burning stars. Darker spots within these arms are dust lanes. The arms are rich in gas, and form large-scale locations that provide the best environment for brand-new stars to form. Closer to the center of the galaxy are cooler, older stars and dust, all obvious by the redder color in the image. This galaxy has actually even been host to an observed stellar end-of-life occasion, when a supernova, named SN2010el, burst onto the scene in 2010.
