The visible and infrared capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope captured this edge view of the lenticular galaxy NGC 612a striking orange and blue stripe.

Lenticular galaxies have a central bulge and a disk similar to spiral galaxies, but they lack the characteristic arms. They tend to have older star populations and little ongoing star formation.

In NGC 612, dust and cold hydrogen gas make up most of the galactic disk, the plane of matter we see in orange and dark red. This galaxy appears in the Sculptor constellation and is easily visible from Earth’s southern hemisphere, reports the POT.

NGC 612 is an active galaxy, meaning its center appears more than 100 times brighter than the combined light from its stars. It is also a Seyfert galaxy, the most common type of active galaxy.

Seyfert galaxies emit large amounts of infrared radiation, despite appearing normal in visible light.

NGC 612 is a Seyfert Type II, meaning matter is near the center of the Milky Way it moves quite quietly around the core.

The stars in this galaxy are unusually young, with ages between 40 and 100 million years old Europe Press.

NGC 612 is also an extremely rare example of a non-elliptical radio galaxy, a type of galaxy that exhibits significant radio emissions; in this case a link with radio source PKS 0131-36.

Astronomers have discovered only five radio-emitting lenticular galaxies in the universe.

One theory attributes NGC 612’s unusual radio emissions to a previous interaction with a companion spiral galaxy.

Another theory focuses on the galaxy’s bright, dominant bulge, which is similar to those found in elliptical radio galaxies. By imaging this galaxy, astronomers hope to discover more about the causes of radio waves being emitted by galaxies.

British astronomer John Herschel discovered NGC 612 in 1837. It is located about 400 million light-years from Earth and has a mass about 1.1 trillion times that of our Sun. (JO)