{"id":185762,"date":"2025-12-15T12:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/185762\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T12:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:49:07","slug":"hubble-space-telescope-revisits-ngc-4388","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/185762\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubble Space Telescope Revisits NGC 4388"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an outstanding new image of the highly inclined spiral galaxy NGC 4388.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14421e-NGC-4388.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-107685\" class=\"wp-image-107685 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image_14421-NGC-4388.jpg\" alt=\"This Hubble image shows NGC 4388, a spiral galaxy some 59 million light-years in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ S. Veilleux \/ J. Wang \/ J. Greene.\" width=\"580\" height=\"340\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-107685\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This Hubble image shows NGC 4388, a spiral galaxy some 59 million light-years in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ S. Veilleux \/ J. Wang \/ J. Greene.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/simbad.cds.unistra.fr\/simbad\/sim-id?Ident=NGC+4388\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NGC 4388<\/a> is located approximately 59 million light-years in the constellation of Virgo.<\/p>\n<p>This galaxy was discovered by the British astronomer Sir Wilhelm Herschel on April 17, 1784.<\/p>\n<p>Also known as LEDA 40581 and IRAS 12232+1256, it has a diameter of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NGC_4388\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">120,000 light-years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, a group of more than 2,000 galaxies.<\/p>\n<p>NGC 4388 has a bright energetic nucleus and so is classified as an active galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNGC 4388 is tilted at an extreme angle relative to our point of view, giving us a nearly edge-on vantage point,\u201d the Hubble astronomers wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis perspective reveals a curious feature that wasn\u2019t visible in a previous Hubble image of this galaxy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sci.news\/astronomy\/hubble-image-spiral-galaxy-ngc-4388-04421.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">released<\/a> in 2016: a plume of gas from the galaxy\u2019s nucleus, here seen billowing out from the galaxy\u2019s disk towards the lower-right corner of the image.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut where did this outflow come from, and why does it glow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe answer likely lies in vast stretches that separate the galaxies of the Virgo Cluster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThough the space between the galaxies appears to be empty, this space is actually occupied by hot wisps of gas called the intracluster medium.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs NGC 4388 journeys within the cluster, it plunges through the intracluster medium.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pressure from the hot intracluster gas whisks away the gas from within NGC 4388\u2019s disk, causing it to trail behind as NGC 4388 moves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe source of the energy that ionizes this gas cloud and causes it to glow is more uncertain,\u201d they noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe suspect that some of the energy comes from the center of the galaxy, where a supermassive black hole has spun the gas around it into a superheated disk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe blazing radiation from this disk might ionize the gas closest to the galaxy, while shock waves might be responsible for ionizing the filaments of gas farther out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an outstanding new image of the highly inclined spiral galaxy NGC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6797,1745,26627,85,46,3442,107510,141,26630],"class_list":{"0":"post-185762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-esa","9":"tag-galaxy","10":"tag-hubble","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-ngc-4388","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-spiral-galaxy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185762","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=185762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}