barred galaxy ESO 320-G030 tagged posts

Feeding a Galaxy’s Nuclear Black Hole

A near-infrared Hubble image of the luminous, barred spiral galaxy ESO320-G030. Infrared observations and modeling of over a dozen molecular species at its center reveal massive inflows of gas to a nuclear region undergoing a burst of star formation and dominated by three-components, a small warm core, a disk, and an outer envelope.
NASA/HST; Alonso-Herrero et al.

A galactic bar is the approximately linear structure of stars and gas that stretches across the inner regions of some galaxies. The bar stretches from one inner spiral arm, across the nuclear region, to an arm on the other side...

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