{"id":270640,"date":"2026-02-02T19:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270640\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T19:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:22:09","slug":"hubble-space-telescope-spies-beautiful-lenticular-galaxy-ngc-7722","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270640\/","title":{"rendered":"Hubble Space Telescope Spies Beautiful Lenticular Galaxy: NGC 7722"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a new photo of the lenticular galaxy NGC 7722.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge13\/image_14525e-NGC-7722.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108306\" class=\"wp-image-108306 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image_14525-NGC-7722.jpg\" alt=\"This Hubble image shows NGC 7722, a lenticular galaxy some 187 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ R.J. Foley, UC Santa Cruz \/ Dark Energy Survey \/ DOE \/ FNAL \/ DECam \/ CTIO \/ NOIRLab \/ NSF \/ AURA \/ Mehmet Y\u00fcksek.\" width=\"580\" height=\"387\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108306\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This Hubble image shows NGC 7722, a lenticular galaxy some 187 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. Image credit: NASA \/ ESA \/ Hubble \/ R.J. Foley, UC Santa Cruz \/ Dark Energy Survey \/ DOE \/ FNAL \/ DECam \/ CTIO \/ NOIRLab \/ NSF \/ AURA \/ Mehmet Y\u00fcksek.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/simbad.cds.unistra.fr\/simbad\/sim-id?Ident=NGC+7722\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NGC 7722<\/a> lies approximately 187 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus.<\/p>\n<p>Also known as IRAS 23361+1540, LEDA 71993 and UGC 12718, this lenticular galaxy was first <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NGC_7722\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">discovered<\/a> by the German astronomer Heinrich Louis d\u2019Arrest on August 12, 1864.<\/p>\n<p>NGC 7722 is part of the NGC 7711 group, a gathering of seven large galaxies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lenticular (lens-shaped) galaxy is a type that sits in between the more familiar spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies,\u201d the Hubble astronomers said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is also less common than these \u2014 partly because when a galaxy has an ambiguous appearance, it can be hard to determine if it is actually a spiral, an elliptical galaxy, or something in between.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany of the known lenticular galaxies sport features of both spiral and elliptical galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this case, NGC 7722 lacks the defined arms of a spiral galaxy, while it has an extended, glowing halo and a bright bulge in the center similar to an elliptical galaxy,\u201d they explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnlike elliptical galaxies, it has a visible disk \u2014 concentric rings swirl around its bright nucleus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIts most prominent feature, however, is undoubtedly the long lanes of dark red dust coiling around the outer disk and halo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new image of NGC 7722 from <a href=\"https:\/\/esahubble.org\/about\/general\/instruments\/wfc3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Hubble\u2019s Wide Field Camera 3<\/a> (WFC3) instrument brings the galaxy\u2019s impressive dust lanes into sharp focus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBands of dust like this are not uncommon in lenticular galaxies, and they stand out against the broad, smooth halo of light that typically surrounds lenticular galaxies,\u201d the astronomers said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe distinctive dust lanes of NGC 7722 are thought to result from a merger with another galaxy in the past, similar to other lenticular galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not yet fully understood how lenticular galaxies form, but mergers and other gravitational interactions are thought to play an important part, reshaping galaxies and exhausting their supplies of gas while bringing new dust.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers using the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a new photo of the lenticular galaxy NGC 7722.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6797,1745,26627,85,46,26628,3442,140905,141],"class_list":["post-270640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-esa","tag-galaxy","tag-hubble","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-lenticular-galaxy","tag-nasa","tag-ngc-7722","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270640","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=270640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}