Hubble’s Edgy New Photo Captures a Spiral Galaxy From an Unusual Perspective

UGC 10043

Space telescopes like Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope typically capture head-on images of galaxies, showing them in all their frame-filling glory. However, Hubble imaged its latest target, UGC 10043, from the edge, capturing an unusual, beautiful perspective.

UGC 10043 is a spiral galaxy located roughly 150 million light-years away in the constellation Serpens. However, with Hubble’s new view, the spiral arms aren’t as evident as usual, given that they are viewed from the side. At such a great distance away, it is challenging to see which parts of the spiral arms are closer to the telescope and which regions are farther away.

NASA notes that UGC 10043 is “one of the somewhat rare spiral galaxies that we see edge-on.”

“This edge-on viewpoint makes the galaxy’s disk appear as a sharp line through space, with its prominent dust lanes forming thick bands of clouds that obscure our view of the galaxy’s glow,” NASA explains. “If we could fly above the galaxy, viewing it from the top down, we would see this dust scattered across UGC 10043, possibly outlining its spiral arms. Despite the dust’s obscuring nature, some active star-forming regions shine out from behind the dark clouds.”

The galaxy’s center, which features a glowing, egg-shaped “bulge” rising above the disk is also clearly visible. All spiral galaxies have a bulge like this, NASA explains, although their heights are rarely as visibly obvious as in this image.

It is a lucky coincidence that UGC 10043 is one of a small number of galaxies that can be seen from this angle, as its bulging disk is unusually large. Scientists studying the galaxy believe its size may be due to the galaxy “siphoning material from a nearby dwarf galaxy,” which could also explain why its disk appears to be warped, “bending up at one end and down at the other.”

Like many of Hubble’s full-color images, this latest one is technically a composite comprised of multiple individual frames captured by the telescope. What sets this composite apart is that it is not made of two frames captured in sequence, but rather images collected 23 years apart, one in 2000 and the other in 2023.

“Hubble’s longevity doesn’t just afford us the ability to produce new and better images of old targets; it also provides a long-term archive of data which only becomes more and more useful to astronomers,” NASA concludes.

Image credits: ESA/Hubble and NASA, R. Windhorst, W. Keel