Hubble Captures New Life in an Ancient Galaxy
Thursday, November 18, 2010 - 09:20
in Astronomy & Space
Elliptical galaxies were once thought to be aging star cities whose star-making heyday was billions of years ago. But new Hubble Space Telescope observations show that ellipticals still have some youthful vigor left, thanks to encounters with smaller galaxies. Hubble's near-ultraviolet images of the core of NGC 4150 reveal streamers of dust and gas and clumps of young, blue stars that are significantly less than a billion years old.