Hubble Spotted Megamaser 370 Million Light-Years Away from Earth

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Just recently, the Hubble Space Telescope captured an astonishing image of light 100 million times brighter than the masers found in the milky way, emits microwave from 370 million light-years from Earth. This light is made known as megamasers which is a type of astrophysical maser which is a naturally occurring source of spectral line emission.

In an article posted by NASA, this megamaser galaxy named IRAS 16399-0937 was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope imitating a painting of a serene and beautiful cosmic rosebud. It was captured across various wavelengths by two Hubble instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys or ACS and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer or NICMOS.

NICMOS, through its superb sensitivity, resolution and field of view, NASA scientists found a host of double nucleus in the IRAS 16399-0937 galaxy core separately formed in two. The IRAS 16399N and IRAS 16399S are the northern and the southern parts respectively and are being separated 11,000 light-years apart. But this the northern and the southern parts are buried deep within the same cosmic gases and dusts and are interacting at the same giving the galaxy its weird structure.

However, according to Mirror, even if these two parts of the IRAS 16399-0937 galaxy both in the same cosmic location and shared the same cosmic gas and dust, their nuclei are very different. In the statement from the European Space Agency, the IRAS 16399S has a LINER or Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Region nucleus whose emission mostly stems from weakly-ionized or neutral atoms of gases. IRAS 16399N, on the other hand, appears to be a starburst region where new stars are forming at an incredible rate.

Moreover, the IRAS 16399N also hosts a black hole with approximately 100 million times the mass of the sun.

Hubble Space Telescope was launched in April 24, 1990 on the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It has made over 1.2 million observations since the beginning of its operation in the 90's and help scientists and astronomers to study the furthermost of space.

Hubble Telescope will keep on running and will be set to retire in 2020 and be replaced by an $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope.