The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a snowflake galaxy, named NGC 6814.
NASA reported on May 13 that Hubble was able to capture a stunning image of a spiral galaxy. Irregular galaxies and spiral galaxies are not a rare sight in the universe, as they account for as much as 60 percent of all the galaxies.
What makes them special is that no two are the same. Spiral galaxies all have far-reaching arms that curve, but they are still different from one another.
About 60 percent of spiral galaxies have several spiral arms, while only 10 percent of them only have two arms. Thirty percent undergo spiral arm variations from time to time.
"Despite their prevalence, each spiral galaxy is unique - like snowflakes, no two are alike," NASA shared in its blog.
Spotted 47 million light-years away from Earth, NGC 6814 has a very luminous nucleus and wide arms dotted with delicate patterns of dark dust. Its bright nucleus, NASA reported, signifies that the captured galaxy belongs to the Seyfert class of galaxies. Under infrared wavelengths, Seyfert galaxies can be seen with highly active cores and very bright nuclei that can outshine nearby galaxies. The nucleus is also a source of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.
Scientists observed that NGC 6814 has an extremely variable X-ray radiation source, which suggests that it could be hosting a supermassive black hole with a mass 18 million times that of the sun.
Along the snowflake galaxy's arms are clouds of ionized gas. Its blue-dotted body showed evidence that it has given birth to many young star formations.
NGC 6814 was first discovered in the 1980s and has since piqued the interest of many astronomers. Of the myriad of galaxies in the universe, NGC 6184 flickers faster than any other object. In a 1993 report by Greg Madejski of the NASA's Goddard Space Universities Space Research Association, it was observed that NGC 6184 is the only galactic object that has a predictable flicker. The brightness of its nuclear region undergoes changes depending on the order of weeks and months.
Earlier this year, the Hubble telescope also spotted an irregularly shaped galaxy that has a very bright source of X-ray radiation.
