Hubble captures starry tentacles of faraway 'jellyfish galaxy' in stunning detail (photo)

By Sharmila Kuthunur published about 22 hours ago
Those tentacles host lots of star formation.



NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this shot of the "jellyfish galaxy" JW39, which lies about 900 million light-years from Earth. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gullieuszik and the GASP team)


A faraway galaxy's cosmic tentacles are on full display in a gorgeous new image captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The Hubble snapshot reveals a deceptively serene "jellyfish galaxy" called JW39, which lies over 900 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices.

The JW39 galaxy, which is known for its distinct tentacle-like tails and hosts a supermassive black hole at its center just like the Milky Way does, is regularly distorted by the gravitational pull of numerous other galaxies that share its cosmic neighborhood.

The space between galaxies in the cluster is not empty. Instead, it is filled with superheated plasma through which galaxies wade, much "like swimmers fighting against a current," NASA officials wrote in an image description published on Friday (May 26).

More:
https://www.space.com/hubble-space-telescope-jellyfish-galaxy-photo