Hubble image archive
Mosaic of Super Spirals
The top row of this mosaic features Hubble images of three spiral galaxies, each of which weighs several times as much as the Milky Way. The bottom row shows three even more massive spiral galaxies that qualify as “super spirals,” which were observed by the ground-based Sloan Dig...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2019
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2019-54-4580-image
The top row of this mosaic features Hubble images of three spiral galaxies, each of which weighs several times as much as the Milky Way. The bottom row shows three even more massive spiral galaxies that qualify as “super spirals,” which were observed by the ground-based Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Super spirals typically have 10 to 20 times the mass of the Milky Way. The galaxy at lower right, 2MFGC 08638, is the most massive super spiral known to date, with a dark matter halo weighing at least 40 trillion Suns.
Astronomers have measured the rotation rates in the outer reaches of these spirals to determine how much dark matter they contain. They found that the super spirals tend to rotate much faster than expected for their stellar masses, making them outliers. Their speed may be due to the influence of a surrounding dark matter halo, the largest of which contains the mass of at least 40 trillion suns.
Credits
Top row: NASA, ESA, P. Ogle and J. DePasquale (STScI). Bottom row: SDSS, P. Ogle and J. DePasquale (STScI)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Collection of Super Spiral Galaxies observed by Hubble and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey |
| Object Description | Spiral Galaxies |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov