{"id":175435,"date":"2025-12-09T07:21:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/175435\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T07:21:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:21:15","slug":"hubble-space-telescope-zooms-in-on-markarian-178","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/175435\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubble Space Telescope Zooms in on Markarian 178"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the blue compact dwarf galaxy Markarian 178.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14403e-Mrk-178.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-107577\" class=\"wp-image-107577 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_14403-Mrk-178.jpg\" alt=\"This Hubble image shows the blue compact dwarf galaxy Markarian 178. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ F. Annibali \/ S. Hong.\" width=\"580\" height=\"574\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-107577\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This Hubble image shows the blue compact dwarf galaxy Markarian 178. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ F. Annibali \/ S. Hong.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/simbad.cds.unistra.fr\/simbad\/sim-id?Ident=Mrk+178\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Markarian 178<\/a> is located approximately 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major.<\/p>\n<p>Also known as Mrk 178, LEDA 35684 or UGC 6541, the galaxy has a diameter of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/UGC_6541\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">5,700 light-years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMrk 178 is one of more than 1,500 Markarian galaxies,\u201d the Hubble astronomers said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese galaxies get their name from the Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who compiled a list of galaxies that were surprisingly bright in ultraviolet light.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the bulk of the galaxy is blue owing to an abundance of young, hot stars with little dust shrouding them, Mrk 178 gets a red hue from a <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1086\/301547\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">collection of massive stars<\/a>, which are especially concentrated in the brightest, reddish region near the galaxy\u2019s edge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis azure cloud is home to a large number of rare objects called Wolf-Rayet stars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWolf-Rayet stars are massive stars that are casting off their atmospheres through powerful winds,\u201d the astronomers explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause Mrk 178 contains so many Wolf-Rayet stars, the bright emission lines from these stars\u2019 hot stellar winds are etched upon the galaxy\u2019s spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParticularly ionized hydrogen and oxygen appear as a red color to Mrk 178 in this photo, observed using some of Hubble\u2019s specialized light filters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMassive stars enter the Wolf-Rayet phase just before they collapse into black holes or neutron stars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause Wolf-Rayet stars last for only a few million years, we know that something must have triggered a recent burst of star formation in Mrk 178.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt first glance, it\u2019s not clear what could be the cause \u2014 Mrk 178 doesn\u2019t seem to have any close galactic neighbors that could have stirred up its gas to form new stars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead, we suspect that a gas cloud crashed into Mrk 178, or its gas may have been disturbed as the galaxy swims through the intergalactic medium, lighting up this tiny galaxy with a ripple of bright new stars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the blue compact dwarf&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[103154,103155,6797,1745,26627,85,46,103156,103157,3442,141,145,4952,103158],"class_list":{"0":"post-175435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-blue-compact-dwarf-galaxy","9":"tag-dwarf-galaxy","10":"tag-esa","11":"tag-galaxy","12":"tag-hubble","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-markarian-178","16":"tag-mrk-178","17":"tag-nasa","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-space","20":"tag-star","21":"tag-wolf-rayet-star"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}