She strapped the sword Benedict to her waist and led the castle battalion down to the village, where she waited on the edge of the wharf, her ebony hair streaming behind her in the sea breeze, her noble chin held high.
(Veronica didn’t mention the bits about the hair and the chin; they are my own invention. I always picture Queen Matilda as a cross between Joan of Arc and Veronica.)
This beautiful, glittering swirl is named, rather unpoetically, J125013.50+073441.5. A glowing haze of material seems to engulf the galaxy, stretching out into space in different directions and forming a fuzzy streak in this image.
It is a starburst galaxy — a name given to galaxies that show unusually high rates of star formation. The regions where new stars are being born are highlighted by sparkling bright blue regions along the galactic arms.
Studying starburst galaxies can tell us a lot about galactic evolution and star formation. These galaxies start off with huge amounts of gas, which is used to form new stars.
This period of furious star formation is only a phase; once all the gas is used up, this starbirth slows down. Other famous starbursts captured by Hubble include the Antennae Galaxies (heic0615) and Messier 82 (heic0604), the latter of which is forming new stars ten times faster than our galaxy, the Milky Way.
