This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is an image of the spiral galaxy UGC 11397, which is located about 250 million years light-years away.
At the time the light we are now seeing left UGC 11397, the Earth was a very different place. It was dealing with the Permian–Triassic mass extinction, also called the Great Dying. During this period about 94 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate families disappeared from the planet.
Anyway, getting back to the image itself, here is a little more information from NASA to explain what you are seeing:
What sets UGC 11397 apart from a typical spiral lies at its center, where a supermassive black hole containing 174 million times the mass of our Sun grows. As a black hole ensnares gas, dust, and even entire stars from its vicinity, this doomed matter heats up and puts on a fantastic cosmic light show.
Material trapped by the black hole emits light from gamma rays to radio waves, and can brighten and fade without warning. But in some galaxies, including UGC 11397, thick clouds of dust hide much of this energetic activity from view in optical light. Despite this, UGC 11397’s actively growing black hole was revealed through its bright X-ray emission — high-energy light that can pierce the surrounding dust. This led astronomers to classify it as a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy, a category used for active galaxies whose central regions are hidden from view in visible light by a donut-shaped cloud of dust and gas.
