This picture is like a dream and was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope from NASA/ESA. It shows a galaxy called NGC 3156, which is quite far away from us, about 73 million light-years, in a constellation called Sextans.

 

 

 

Now, NGC 3156 is a special type of galaxy called lenticular. It looks a bit like a lens when you see it from the side. These galaxies are a mix of two other types: spiral and elliptical. They have a bunch of stars in the middle and a big disk around them, similar to spirals. They also have dark dust lines like spirals, but they don’t have the swirling arms. However, they are more like elliptical galaxies because they have older stars and not much new star-making going on.

 

 

 

 

 

Astronomers have checked out NGC 3156 in various ways. They looked at its groups of stars called globular clusters, and they also watched how stars near its center get eaten up by the supermassive black hole at its core. What they found is that NGC 3156 has more stars getting eaten by its black hole compared to similar galaxies.

 

 

Text credit : European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit : ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sharples, S. Kaviraj, W. Keel
http://www.nasa.gov