About 390 million light-years away, the galaxy Z 229-15 is home to a supermassive black hole at its core.
Material sucking into the black hole is drawn into a swirling disk, which gets so hot that it releases a large amount of energy – hence the bright central region seen in this #hubblefriday image.
This region is known as an active galactic nuclei, or AGN. Z 229-15 is also classified as a quasar, which is a type of AGN that are both extremely bright and distant. Often, an AGN is so bright that the rest of the galaxy cannot be seen; however, Seyfert galaxies like this one are active galaxies that host bright AGNs while remaining observable.
Clearly, astronomical classification can get tricky!
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Barth, R. Mushotzky
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