IC 4271 , also known as Arp 40, LEDA 47334, and IRAS 13271+3740, is approximately 800 million light-years distant from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.
The object is made up of a pair of galaxies: the smaller galaxy overlaps the larger one, which is a type of active galaxy called a Seyfert galaxy.
“Seyfert galaxies are named after astronomer Carl K. Seyfert who, in 1943, published a paper on spiral galaxies with very bright emission lines,” the Hubble astronomers said. “Today we know that about 10% of all galaxies that may be Seyfert galaxies belong to the class of active galaxies, galaxies that have supermassive black holes at their centers that accumulate material, which releases large amounts of radiation.”
As the researchers explain, the largest galaxy in IC 4271 is a Seyfert Type II galaxy, which means it is a very bright source of visible and infrared light.
What we see is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument.
“The image uses data collected during Hubble observations designed to study the role of dust in shaping the energy distributions of low-mass disk galaxies,” the researchers explained. “The Hubble observations looked at six pairs of galaxies where one was opposite the other. The wide range of light that the WFC3 camera is sensitive to, coupled with its resolution, allowed us to map the foreground galaxy’s dust disk in great detail across ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.”
Thus, the colors that we can see in this spectacular image are mainly visible light, while violet represents ultraviolet light and red represents near infrared light.
Referencia: NASA / ESA / B. Holwerda, University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc. / G. Kober, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Catholic University of America.
