45 degree view of a spiral galaxy. Dark blue dust and gas covers up most of its millions of stars, but the core, center of the image, is bright white.

Hubble Caldwell 29

Caldwell 29, also known as NGC 5005, is a spiral galaxy that likely harbors a supermassive black hole at its heart. The galaxy has a feature called a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) nucleus, which means the gas at the center of the galaxy is emitting light at certain wavelengths that indicates a source of energy is removing electrons from the atoms in the gas (“ionizing” it).

Credits: NASA, ESA, and L. Ho (Peking University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)