NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) often delights the internet with updates on the latest developments related to galaxies, stars and planets within our solar system. It also shares captivating images captured by its many spacecraft. Now, in its most recent post, the US space agency dropped a stunning photograph of a spiral galaxy located 220 million light-years from Earth. The image of the galaxy, which is also known as the "jellyfish" galaxy, was captured using NASA and the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope.
"This spiral galaxy, found 220 million light-years from Earth (and seen here by @NASAHubble), is known as a "jellyfish" galaxy because of the blue ribbons of stars that trail from it like cosmic tentacles," NASA wrote in the caption.
"When viewed in X-ray light, though, an even longer tail of hot gas emerges which extends across 260,000 light-years of space-shown here in purplish-blue with data from @NASAChandraXRay," it added.
Take a look below:
The US space agency said that the newly-forming stars in the tail of the "jellyfish" galaxy are a mystery to astronomers. "Galaxies that live in a cluster tend to stop forming new stars sooner than galaxies outside of clusters," NASA explained.
The "jellyfish" galaxy in the cluster is getting pulled in by the cluster's gravity which causes the gas to act like wind and can remove the gas and dust in a process called "ram pressure stripping". Since galaxies need gas to form stars, this will then slow the process of star formation, the space agency said.
"A bright blue light, encircled by translucent blue swirls, rockets toward the upper left of the image, leaving two long blue ribbons of young stars dangling from the galaxy's disk like cosmic tentacles. Set against a black background of space packed with gleaming stars, clusters of blue gas and stars appear to travel with the galaxy alongside the flowing tails," NASA wrote while explaining the picture.
NASA shared the image just a few hours ago and since then it has accumulated more than 360,000 likes. In the comments section, one user wrote, "It actually does look like a jellyfish. Beautiful!" "An enchanting fusion of celestial marvel and scientific inquiry!" said another.
"Spectacular," commented a third. "Our Universe is so mesmerizing," added a fourth user.
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