Hubble telescope captures a mysterious object that defies classification
1 min readThe Hubble Space Telescope took a picture A mysterious celestial body that defies classification. Named Z 229-15, it is located about 390 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. At first glance, the formation looks like a spiral galaxy, but it’s actually much more than that.
All at once
According to a publication by the European Space Agency (ESA), Z 229-15 is often identified as a number of different things: sometimes as an active galactic nucleus (or AGN); Sometimes in the form of a quasar. And sometimes like a galaxy. But what is the correct answer? According to the researchers, They are okay.
in the first place, Z 229-15 is indeed a galaxy. Second, it’s an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a region at the center of a galaxy that’s extremely bright because it has a supermassive black hole at its core. Finally, Z 229-15 is also a quasar, which is a specific subspecies of AGN. Criteria for classifying an AGN as a quasar include extreme brightness and great distance from Earth, which is the case.
So, Z 229-15 is a quasar-containing galaxy that hosts an active galactic nucleus. According to the European Space Agency, the object “All of these things are in the same place at the same time.”. “Classification in astronomy can be challenging!” The agency publication concludes.
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