Hubble Revisits Majestic Spiral Galaxy: NGC 4414

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a magnificent new image of the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 4414.

NGC 4414 resides roughly 51 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Coma Berenices.

Also known as the Dusty Spiral Galaxy, Ark 365, IRAS 12239+3129, LEDA 40692 or UGC 7539, this galaxy has a diameter of about 56,000 light-years.

NGC 4414 was first discovered on March 13, 1785 by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel.

The galaxy belongs to the Coma I Group, a group of galaxies close to the Virgo Cluster.

NGC 4414 was previously observed by Hubble in 1995 and in 1999 as part of a research effort to study Cepheid variable stars.

“Cepheids are a special type of variable star with very stable and predictable brightness variations,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“The period of these variations depends on physical properties of the stars such as their mass and true brightness.”

“This means that astronomers, just by looking at the variability of their light, can find out about the Cepheids’ physical nature, which then can be used very effectively to determine their distance.”

“For this reason cosmologists call Cepheids ‘standard candles’.”

“Astronomers have used Hubble to observe Cepheids, like those that reside in NGC 4414, with extraordinary results.”

“The Cepheids have then been used as stepping-stones to make distance measurements for supernovae, which have, in turn, given a measure for the scale of the Universe.”

“Today we know the age of the Universe to a much higher precision than before Hubble: around 13.7 billion years.”