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This\u00a0Picture of the Week\u00a0shows the jewel-bright\u00a0spiral\u00a0galaxy\u00a0NGC 4689, which lies 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation has the distinction of being the only one of the 88 constellations officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to be named after an historical figure, Queen Berenice II of Egypt. The latin word \u2018coma\u2019 references her hair, meaning that NGC 4689 can be said to be found in the hair of a queen. Some people of Berenice\u2019s time would have meant this quite literally, as the story goes that her court astronomer thought that a missing lock of Berenice\u2019s hair had been catasterised (a word meaning \u2018placed amongst the stars\u2019) by the gods: hence the name of the constellation, Coma Berenices.<\/p>\n
NGC 4689 holds an interesting \u2014 albeit less royal \u2014 place in modern astronomy too. The Universe is so incredibly vast that at a distance of a mere 54 million light-years NGC 4689 is relatively nearby for a galaxy. This image has been made using data from two sets of observations, one made in 2019 and 2024, both of which were made as a part of programmes that observed multiple \u2018nearby\u2019 galaxies. The 2024 observing programme is an interesting example of how Hubble \u2014 a relatively old but extraordinarily productive telescope \u2014 can support the work of the technologically cutting-edge Webb telescope. Observations collected by Webb stand to transform our understanding of how galaxies transform and evolve over time, by providing data of an unprecedented level of detail and clarity. However, thanks to their complementary capabilities, new observations from Hubble \u2014 such as those used to create this image \u2014 can assist the work done using Webb. In this case, the Hubble data were collected in order to get a more accurate grasp of the stellar populations of nearby galaxies, which is crucial to understanding the evolution of galaxies. Thus, NGC 4689 is playing an important role in developing our understanding of how all galaxies evolve. In fact, it is observed enough that it has been the subject of a Hubble Picture of the Week before,\u00a0in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Image Description:<\/i>\u00a0A spiral galaxy is viewed close up and fills most of the scene. It has a bright, glowing spot at the core, broad spiral arms that are covered by many dark threads of dust, and pink glowing spots across the disc that mark areas of star formation. The disc of the galaxy is surrounded by a faint halo that bleeds into the dark background.]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n