Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of the spiral galaxy IC 4633.
This Hubble image shows IC 4633, a spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years away in the constellation of Apus. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which is mounted on NSF’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Five filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Galbany / J. Dalcanton / Dark Energy Survey / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / L. Shatz.
IC 4633 lies approximately 100 million light-years away in the small southern constellation of Apus.
Also known as ESO 44-3, IRAS 17062-7728 or LEDA 59884, this spiral galaxy is rich in star-forming activity, as well as hosting an active galactic nucleus at its core.
“From our point of view, IC 4633 is tilted mostly towards us, giving us a fairly good view of its billions of stars,” the Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“However, we can’t fully appreciate the features of this galaxy — at least in visible light — because it’s partially concealed by a stretch of dark dust.”
“This dark nebula is part of the Chamaeleon star-forming region, itself located only around 500 light-years from us, in a nearby part of the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“The dark clouds in the Chamaeleon region occupy a large area of the southern sky, covering their namesake constellation but also encroaching on nearby constellations, like Apus.”
“The cloud is well-studied for its treasury of young stars, particularly the cloud Cha I, which has been imaged by Hubble and also by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.”
“The cloud overlapping IC 4633 lies east of the well-known Cha I, II and III, and has been called MW9 or the South Celestial Serpent.”
“A vast, narrow trail of faint gas that snakes over the southern celestial pole, it’s much more subdued-looking than its neighbors.”
“It’s classified as an integrated flux nebula — a cloud of gas and dust in the Milky Way Galaxy that’s not near to any single star, and is only faintly lit by the total light of all the Galaxy’s stars.”
“Hubble has no problem making out the South Celestial Serpent, though this image captures only a tiny part of it.”
“For a showy astronomical object like IC 4633, among the South Celestial Serpent’s coils clearly isn’t a bad place to hide.”
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