The region, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, came into the limelight three years ago after astronomers witnessed the violent death of one of its massive stars, days after it ran out of fuel and went supernova.

The new front view shows the distant galaxy UGC 678, located 260 million light-years from us. Soil In the constellation Pisces. Although astronomers know little about the formation and structure of the galaxy, past observations using various telescopes have shown the galaxy to be an intriguing object.

On December 2, 2020, astronomers found evidence of a “giant supernova explosion” near the heart of the galaxy; this showed that a star many times larger than the Sun ran out of fuel and collapsed under its own gravity.

The explosive death of the mysterious star that followed (opens in a new tab) was detected by the Asteroid Last Collision Alert System (ATLAS), a network of four telescopes that searched the sky for near-Earth asteroids in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. . While ATLAS’ primary focus is to warn astronomers of objects that will impact Earth, the project is also detecting sudden changes in signals from celestial objects, such as caused by the violent death of a star in galaxy UGC 678.

Reporting that this supernova was discovered in 2020, astronomers called for more detailed observations, saying they saw the event “a few days after the explosion.” Two weeks after the discovery, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia spacecraft confirmed that the bright light astronomers had seen was indeed caused by a supernova.

Other studies of UGC 678 include observations by the Pan-Star Telescope and Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, in Hawaii. In a release of the image released Monday, April 17, ESA officials Hubble observed the galaxy twice to look for debris from the explosion “in hopes of uncovering clues to the identity of the star that produced the 2020 supernova.” . Several such discoveries have helped astronomers determine exactly what the galaxy looks like, but they still don’t know much about the exploding star.