IC 776 is a spiral galaxy
This image taken by the Hubble Telescope shows the dwarf galaxy **IC 776**. This swirl of new and old stars is located in the constellation Virgo, 100 million light-years from Earth. Although it is classified as a **dwarf galaxy**, it is... IC 776 is also a weakly barred spiral galaxy, or SAB type.
Hubble's detailed view illustrates this complexity, showing a distorted, turbulent disk orbiting the galactic core, surrounded by arcs of star-forming regions.
This image was taken as part of a monitoring program dedicated to studying dwarf galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. The program looks for visible light emissions from X-ray sources in these galaxies.
X-rays result from a process called accretion, in which material pulled toward a dense object (such as a black hole or neutron star) by gravity collides together, producing enormous heat that is radiated as X-rays.
The source could be a very small star called a white dwarf, an extremely dense star called a neutron star, or a supermassive black hole that swallows everything in its path.
Dwarf galaxies, like IC 776, experience enormous pressure from intergalactic gas as they move through the Virgo Cluster. This pressure is similar to the feeling of air on your face while riding a bike.
Intergalactic gas pressure stimulates star formation, feeding the galaxy's central black hole. As more material spins toward the black hole, an active accretion disk forms, hot enough to emit X-rays.
Although Hubble cannot see X-rays, it can coordinate with X-ray telescopes, such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, to detect sources of this radiation.
Dwarf galaxies are very important to our understanding of cosmology and galaxy evolution. As with many areas of astronomy, the ability to examine these galaxies across the electromagnetic spectrum is crucial to their study.
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