The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the galaxy pair IC 4271, which is found in the constellation of Canes Venatici.
This Hubble image shows IC 4271, a pair of superimposed spiral galaxies some 800 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Image credit: NASA / ESA / B. Holwerda, University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc. / G. Kober, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Catholic University of America.
IC 4271, also known as Arp 40, LEDA 47334 and IRAS 13271+3740, is located approximately 800 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici.
The smaller galaxy in IC 4271 is superimposed on the larger one, which is a type of active galaxy called a Seyfert galaxy.
“Seyfert galaxies are named for astronomer Carl K. Seyfert who, in 1943, published a paper about spiral galaxies with very bright emission lines,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Today we know that about 10% of all galaxies may be Seyfert galaxies.”
“They belong to the class of active galaxies — galaxies that have supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material, which releases vast amounts of radiation.”
“The active cores of Seyfert galaxies are at their brightest when observed in light outside the visible spectrum.”
“The larger galaxy in this pair is a Type II Seyfert galaxy, which means it is a very bright source of infrared and visible light.”
This image of IC 4271 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument.
“The image uses data collected during Hubble observations designed to study the role of dust in shaping the energy distributions of low mass disk galaxies,” the reserchers explained.
“The Hubble observations looked at six pairs of galaxies where one was in front of the other.”
“The broad range of light that the WFC3 camera is sensitive to, along with its resolution, allowed us to map the foreground galaxy’s dust disk in fine detail across ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.”
“Because IC 4271 is a Type II Seyfert Galaxy, visible and infrared wavelengths of light dominate the image,” they added.
“The colors in this image are primarily visible light, while the color violet represents ultraviolet light and red represents near infrared light.”
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