Noteworthy nearby spiral | ESA/Hubble
Everywhere science looks, it exposes the widening gulf between the way the Bronze Age authors of the Bible imagined their tiny fragment of the cosmos and the reality we now know. Astronomy, no less than biology, geology, or palaeontology, makes clear just how limited and naïve that worldview was.
Today’s reminder of that contrast comes from the European Space Agency’s “Picture of the Week”: the so-called “nearby” spiral galaxy NGC 2835, lying a mere 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra, the Water Snake. In other words, the light now reaching our eyes began its journey 35 million years before the Bible’s writers imagined the universe springing into existence at the command of a magic incantation — יְהִי אוֹר (yehi or! — “Let there be light”), curiously spoken in a language there was no-one else alive to understand.
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And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1.6-10)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)
Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week offers a closeup of a nearby spiral galaxy. The subject is NGC 2835, which lies 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (The Water Snake).
A previous Hubble image of this galaxy was released in 2020, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its gaze toward NGC 2835 in recent years as well. Do you see anything different between today’s image of NGC 2835 and the previously released versions? Overall, NGC 2835 looks quite similar in all of these images, with spiral arms dotted with young blue stars sweeping around an oval-shaped centre, where older stars reside.
This image differs from previously released images because it incorporates new data from Hubble that captures a specific wavelength of red light called H-alpha. The regions that are bright in H-alpha emission can be seen along NGC 2835’s spiral arms, where dozens of bright pink nebulae appear like flowers in bloom. Astronomers are interested in H-alpha light because it signals the presence of several different types of nebulae that arise during different stages of a star’s life. Newborn massive stars create nebulae called H II regions that are particularly brilliant sources of H-alpha light, while dying stars can leave behind supernova remnants or planetary nebulae that can also be identified by their H-alpha emission.
By using Hubble’s sensitive instruments to survey 19 nearby galaxies, researchers aim to identify more than 50 000 nebulae. These observations will help to explain how stars affect their birth neighbourhoods through intense starlight and winds.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Its centre is a bright glowing yellow. The galaxy’s spiral arms contain sparkling blue stars, pink spots of star formation, and dark threads of dust that follow the arms.]
A previous Hubble image of this galaxy was released in 2020, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its gaze toward NGC 2835 in recent years as well. Do you see anything different between today’s image of NGC 2835 and the previously released versions? Overall, NGC 2835 looks quite similar in all of these images, with spiral arms dotted with young blue stars sweeping around an oval-shaped centre, where older stars reside.
This image differs from previously released images because it incorporates new data from Hubble that captures a specific wavelength of red light called H-alpha. The regions that are bright in H-alpha emission can be seen along NGC 2835’s spiral arms, where dozens of bright pink nebulae appear like flowers in bloom. Astronomers are interested in H-alpha light because it signals the presence of several different types of nebulae that arise during different stages of a star’s life. Newborn massive stars create nebulae called H II regions that are particularly brilliant sources of H-alpha light, while dying stars can leave behind supernova remnants or planetary nebulae that can also be identified by their H-alpha emission.
By using Hubble’s sensitive instruments to survey 19 nearby galaxies, researchers aim to identify more than 50 000 nebulae. These observations will help to explain how stars affect their birth neighbourhoods through intense starlight and winds.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Its centre is a bright glowing yellow. The galaxy’s spiral arms contain sparkling blue stars, pink spots of star formation, and dark threads of dust that follow the arms.]
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST team
NGC 2835.Imagine being so ignorant and/or brain-washed as to believe that description in the Bible was the best available description of the universe, far surpassing for accuracy and reliability anything that science can reveal. And yet, there are adults alive today, with access to free information on a scale of which our forebears could only dream, whose understanding of the universe and how it works is no better than that of a Bronze Age pastoralist from the ignorant and fearful infancy of our species.
DSS Finder Chart (30′ × 30′ field) — Highlights NGC 2835 with its approximate size and orientation.
Hydra Constellation Sky Chart — Shows the broader layout of Hydra, aiding visual positioning in the night sky.
Star‑chart zoomed‑in view — A close-up star chart marking the galaxy amid surrounding field stars.
Constellation Grid Overlay — Provides context with grid lines and star positions across Hydra.
Basic Facts
- Type: Barred spiral galaxy (classification: SAB(rs)c).
- Constellation: Hydra (the Water Snake).
- Distance: Approximately 35 million light-years from Earth.
- Size: Roughly 65,000 light-years in diameter (about two-thirds the size of the Milky Way).
- Apparent magnitude: About 10.3 – faint, but visible in medium-sized amateur telescopes.
- Discovery: Found by William Herschel in 1785.
Structure & Appearance
- Spiral arms: Loosely wound, full of star-forming regions and young blue stars.
- Bar: Weakly barred, meaning it has a small central bar feature that helps channel gas inward.
- Core: Contains a supermassive black hole, though smaller than the one in the Milky Way. Estimates put it at around 3–10 million solar masses.
- Dust lanes: Dark filaments of interstellar dust wind through the spiral arms, silhouetted against the starlight.
- Star formation: Active in the outer arms, with pinkish H II regions where new stars are being born.
Observations
- Amateur astronomy: At magnitude 10.3, it’s not visible to the naked eye, but can be seen with a small-to-medium telescope under dark skies. It appears as a faint oval haze with a brighter core.
- Professional imaging: The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a detailed image of NGC 2835, showing the spiral arms rich in blue stars and reddish star-forming regions.
Scientific Interest
- NGC 2835 is often studied as a nearby example of a typical spiral galaxy.
- Its moderate distance and orientation (almost face-on) make it ideal for examining:
- Stellar population gradients (how star ages vary from core to arms).
- Gas and dust distribution in spirals.
- Black hole scaling relations (comparing the mass of central black holes to properties of host galaxies).
This wilful ignorance can only be the result of a pathological mind virus.
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