# @nasa on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DTgMsw-EsdO
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/45178646-nasa-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/42ba8c935b.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-01-14T20:14:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA (@NASA) — https://gondola.cc/NASA

## Caption

This star-studded galaxy is the Circinus galaxy, a nearby spiral galaxy about 13 million light-years away, as seen by NASAHubble.⁣

Circinus has an active supermassive black hole at its center. These black holes remain active by consuming surrounding gas and dust. When matter gets close to the black hole, a donut-shaped ring called a torus can form around it. Then, matter from the “donut” can get pulled into the black hole itself and make a disk – like a whirlpool of water swirling around a drain. This disk grows hotter through friction, eventually becoming hot enough to emit light. Check out NASAWebb to see an artist’s concept of what this could look like!⁣

The resulting light – plus light from the stars we see in the image – can make it hard to see details within the galaxy’s center with ground-based telescopes. However, Webb was able to observe Circinus in infrared light, revealing the interaction between the black hole and matter that we mentioned above.⁣

Image description: The bright white light at the center of a large spiral galaxy highlights streaks of red-brown dust and gas. There are thousands of stars scattered all over the image. The stars vary in size and brightness, and some of them have diffraction spikes.⁣

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez (University of South Carolina), Deepashri Thatte (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: NSF's NOIRLab, CTIO⁣

#NASA #Galaxy #Hubble #Stars #BlackHole

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## Tags

nasa, hubble, galaxy, blackhole, stars

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