Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a remarkably detailed image of the irregular galaxy Arp 263.
Arp 263 is located about 27.1 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Otherwise known as NGC 3239, this irregular galaxy is approximately 40,000 light-years in diameter. Arp 263 was discovered on March 21, 1784 by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel. “Arp 263 is an irregular galaxy and is dotted with regions of recent star formation.”said the Hubble astronomers. “We believe its irregular appearance is due to the fact that it was formed by the merger of two galaxies.” Two different Hubble surveys of Arp 263 contributed data to this image. “The first survey was part of an effort to look at recent supernova sites, such as supernova SN 2012A that was detected just over a decade ago in Arp 263”, the astronomers explained. They used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to search for lingering remnants of the colossal stellar explosion. “The second survey is part of a campaign using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to view all previously unobserved peculiar galaxies in Arp’s catalog, including Arp 263, in order to find promising subjects for further study using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope “they added.
“The intersecting foreground star, BD+17 2217 , is adorned with two sets of crossing diffraction peaks.” “The interaction of light with the internal structure of Hubble means that concentrated bright objects such as stars are surrounded by four prominent points”. “The peaks are at different angles because Hubble had different orientations when it collected the two datasets.”