NGC 4102 lies about 55.4 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Ursa Major.

This intermediate spiral nebula was found by the German-British astronomer William Herschel on April 12, 1789.

Understood as UGC 7096, NGC 4102 is home to an active galactic nucleus.

“Active galactic nuclei are luminescent galactic centers powered by supermassive great voids which contain millions to billion times the mass of our Sun,” the Hubble astronomers stated in a declaration.

“As these great voids capture gas from their environments and draw it close with their extreme gravitational pull, the gas ends up being so hot that it starts to radiance and discharges light from X-ray to radio wavelengths.”

“NGC 4102 supplies a perfect chance to study the methods which active stellar nuclei connect with their home galaxies,” they stated.

“Active stellar nuclei been available in various tastes, from very effective types that take in huge quantities of matter and shoot out jets of charged particles, to calmer types that drink gas from their environments and radiance more faintly.”

“NGC 4102 most likely falls under the latter classification. It’s categorized as Compton-thick– a method of stating that its nucleus is obscured by a thick layer of gas– and a low-ionization nuclear emission-line area (LINER).”

“LINER galaxies are determined by emission lines from specific weakly ionized components, and they can be powered by a supermassive great void that is slackly gathering gas from around it.”

A previous picture of NGC 4102, made from information taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), was launched in 2014.

“The brand-new variation provides an updated view of the galaxy, utilizing information from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which changed WFPC2 in 2009 and surpassed its resolution and field of vision,” the scientists stated.

“The brand-new observations originate from a program that will integrate visible-light images from Hubble with X-ray details from the Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the relationship in between NGC 4102 and its active galactic nucleus.”