Hubble Space Telescope Focuses on Center of NGC 4753

NGC 4753 is featured with a bright white core and surrounding defined dust lanes around its nucleus.

NGC 4753 is located approximately 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo.

Otherwise known as LEDA 43671, UGC 8009 or IRAS 12498-0055, this lenticular galaxy was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel on February 22, 1784.

NGC 4753 is a member of the NGC 4753 group of galaxies within the Virgo II Cloud, a gathering of at least 100 galaxy clusters and individual galaxies stretching off the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster.

“NGC 4753 is believed to be the result of a galactic merger with a nearby dwarf galaxy roughly 1.3 billion years ago,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“The galaxy’s distinct dust lanes around its nucleus are believed to have been accreted from this merger event.”

“It is now believed that most of the mass in the galaxy lies in a slightly flattened spherical halo of dark matter.”

“Dark matter is a form of matter that cannot currently be observed directly, but is thought to comprise about 85% of all matter in the Universe,” they said.

“It is referred to as ‘dark’ because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, and therefore does not seem to emit, reflect or refract light.”

“This object is also of scientific interest to test different theories of formation of lenticular galaxies, given its low-density environment and complex structure.”

“Furthermore, this galaxy has been host to two known Type Ia supernovae.”

“These types of supernovae are extremely important as they are all caused by exploding white dwarfs which have companion stars, and always peak at the same brightness — 5 billion times brighter than the Sun.”

“Knowing the true brightness of these events, and comparing this with their apparent brightness, gives astronomers a unique chance to measure distances in the Universe.”

This new image of NGC 4753 is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet and optical parts of the spectrum.

Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.