By NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center May 9, 2024This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image includes the spiral nebula NGC 4951, located approximately 50 million light-years far from Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Thilker (The Johns Hopkins University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Hubbles picture of NGC 4951 highlights its bright spiral arms and active stellar nucleus, providing critical data for studying galaxy evolution.Bright, stellar spiral arms surround an active galactic center in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth. Its classified as a Seyfert galaxy, which implies that its an extremely energetic type of galaxy with an active galactic nucleus (AGN). However, Seyfert galaxies are unique from other sorts of AGNs due to the fact that the galaxy itself can still be clearly seen– various types of AGNs are so brilliant that its almost difficult to observe the real galaxy that they live within.AGNs like NGC 4951 are powered by supermassive great voids. As matter whirls into the great void, it produces radiation across the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, making the AGN shine brightly.Hubble assisted prove that supermassive black holes exist at the core of practically every galaxy in our universe. Before the telescope released into low-Earth orbit in 1990, astronomers just theorized about their presence. The mission confirmed their presence by observing the indisputable effects of great voids, like jets of material ejecting from black holes and disks of gas and dust focusing on those black holes at very high speeds.These observations of NGC 4951 were required to provide important information for astronomers studying how galaxies progress, with a specific focus on the star formation process. Hubble gathered this information, which is being integrated with observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to support a JWST Treasury program. Treasury programs collect observations that concentrate on the potential to solve numerous clinical problems with a single, meaningful dataset and enable a range of engaging scientific investigations.
