Galactic Bar Scene
A mature, bright setting observed in new New Hubble Telescope image
I like my bars dimly lit, calm and slightly sophisticated, rather mature in nature but not stuffy. This galactic bar scene is quite the opposite: bright and rather chaotic. But the maturity element is evident.
The new view from the Hubble Space Telescope pictures the spiral galaxy NGC 4731, which is 43 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. This is a barred spiral galaxy, a common sort marked by the central bar, created by a concentration of stars and gas all lined up into a super dense region.
Bars in galaxies represent maturity, a later stage of galaxy development.
But this galaxy is not done making noise.
“The abundance of color illustrates the galaxy's billowing clouds of gas, dark dust bands, bright pink star-forming regions and, most obviously, the long, glowing bar with trailing arms,” European Space Agency astronomers said in a statement.
Though the spiral nature of this galaxy isn’t evident given the angle of view, astronomers say the arms have likely been elongated due to the gravitational pull of other nearby galaxies.