Distant Galaxies in Space

Stunning images of galaxies in deep space, featuring vibrant colors and intricate structures, conveying the vastness and beauty of the universe.

This beautiful galaxy shows an interesting "bar" in the nucleus area and two symetrical arms. It lies about 20 million light years distant in the constellation Leo.

This beautiful galaxy shows an interesting "bar" in the nucleus area and two symetrical arms. It lies about 20 million light years distant in the constellation Leo.

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Messier 81, or Bode's Galaxy, is located about 12 million light years from our planet and is one of the most iconic spiral galaxies in the night sky

Centaurus A galaxy in the constellation Centaurus.

The peculiar galaxy NGC 3256 dominates this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This Milky Way-sized galaxy lies about 120 million light-years away in the constellation Vela, and is a denizen of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster. A large, face-on spiral galaxy. The core is radiating Streaks of dust glow intensely red, in the centre and across most of the galaxy. This gas is surrounded by a dark grey halo made of the galaxys stars. The halo stretches out into a tidal tail at the upper-left, and another at the bottom. CREDIT: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans

Spiral galaxy NGC 105.

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Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy Stars, dust and gas nebula in a far galaxy. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 14561327

NGC 1097

Ring galaxy in space, AM 0644-741

AM 0644-741 Galaxy

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M106, spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici.

Released to commemorate the 14th anniversary of NASAs Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is the image of a galaxy cataloged as AM 0644-741. Resembling a diamond encrusted bracelet, the ring of brilliant blue star clusters wraps around a yellowish nucleus of what was once a normal spiral galaxy. Located 300 million light years away in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado, the sparkling blue ring is 150,000 light years in diameter, making it larger than our entire home galaxy, the Milky Way. Ring galaxies are a striking example of how collisions between galaxies can dramatically change their structure, while triggering the formation of new stars. Typically one galaxy plunges directly into the disk of another one. The ring that pierced through this galaxys ring is out of the image but is visible in larger-field images. The soft galaxy visible to the left of the ring galaxy is a coincidental background galaxy which is not interacting with the ring. Rampant star formation explains

Outer Space Galaxy Stars Universe Cosmic Background

NGC 520 is the product of a collision between two disk galaxies that started 300 million years ago. This image is part of a large collection of images of merging galaxies taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is known as NGC 3597. It is the product of a collision between two good-sized galaxies, and is slowly evolving to become a giant elliptical galaxy. This type of galaxy has grown more and more common as the universe has evolved, with initially small galaxies merging and progressively building up into larger galactic structures over time. NGC 3597 is located approximately 150 million light-years away in the constellation of Crater (The Cup). Astronomers study NGC 3597 to learn more about how elliptical galaxies form many ellipticals began their lives far earlier in the history of the universe. Older ellipticals are nicknamed “red and dead” by astronomers because these bloated galaxies are not anymore producing new, bluer stars, and are thus packed full of old and redder stellar populations. Before infirmity sets in, some freshly formed elliptical galaxies experience a final flush of youth, as is the case with NGC 3597. Galaxies

Pinwheel Galaxy - M101 Spiral Galaxy This giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across, or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. About 100 billion of them could be similar to our Sun. This is one of the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy that has been released from Hubble. The galaxy s portrait is actually composed of 51 individual Hubble exposures, in addition to elements from images from ground-based photos. Original image by ESA/Hubble M. Kornmesser, warped and recoloured by NN Copyright: xZoonar.com/Ing.xSchiederxMarkusx 5996605

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Discovered by British astronomer William Herschel over 200 years ago, NGC 2500 lies about 30 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Lynx. As this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows, NGC 2500 is a particular kind of spiral galaxy known as a barred spiral, its wispy arms swirling out from a bright, elongated core. Barred spirals are actually more common than was once thought. Around two-thirds of all spiral galaxies including the Milky Way exhibit these straight bars cutting through their centers. These cosmic structures act as glowing nurseries for newborn stars, and funnel material towards the active core of a galaxy. NGC 2500 is still actively forming new stars, although this process appears to be occurring very unevenly. The upper half of the galaxy where the spiral arms are slightly better defined hosts many more star-forming regions than the lower half, as indicated by the bright, dotted islands of light. There is another similarity between NGC 2

Infrared image of the Andromeda Galaxy.

This is a photo taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory that reveals the remains of an explosion in the form of two enormous arcs of multimillion-degree gas in the galaxy Centaurus A that appear to be part of a ring 25,000 light years in diameter. The size and location of the ring suggest that it could have been an explosion that occurred about 10 million years ago. A composite image made with radio (red and green), optical (yellow-orange), and X-ray data (blue) presents a sturning tableau of a turbulent galaxy. A broad band of dust and cold gas is bisected at an angle by opposing jets of high-energy particles blasting away from the supermassive black hole in the nucleus. Lying in a plane perpendicular to the jets are the two large arcs of x-ray emitting multi-million degree gas. This discovery can help astronomers better understand the cause and effect of violent outbursts from the vicinity of supermassive black holes of active galaxies. The Chandra program is managed by the Marshal

Star field in space a nebulae and a gas congestion. Elements of this image furnished by NASA .. Star field in space and a nebulae

Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy

Maffei 2 is the poster child for an infrared galaxy that is almost invisible to optical telescopes. But this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope penetrates the dust to reveal the galaxy in all its glory.

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This image is from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an observation of the large galaxy in Andromeda, Messier 31. The Andromeda galaxy is the most massive in the local group of galaxies that includes our Milky Way.

Barred Spiral Galaxy

NGC 2403, a spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis.

Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this close-up image reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding star. The inner region sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and tsunamis of charged particles embedded in magnetic fields. The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the sun but compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star shoots out detectable beams of energy that make it look like it's pulsating. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope snapshot is centered on the region around the neutron star (the rightmost of the two bright stars near the center of this image) and the expanding, tattered, filamentary debris surrounding it. Hubble's sharp view captures the intricate details of glowing gas, shown in red, that forms a swirling medley of cavities and filaments. Inside this shell is a ghostly blue

It is known today that merging galaxies play a large role in the evolution of galaxies and the formation of elliptical galaxies in particular. However there are only a few merging systems close enough to be observed in depth. The pair of interacting galaxies seen here known as NGC 3921 is one of these systems. NGC 3921 found in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) is an interacting pair of disk galaxies in the late stages of its merger. Observations show that both of the galaxies involved were about the same mass and collided about 700 million years ago. You can see clearly in this image the disturbed morphology, tails and loops characteristic of a post-merger. The clash of galaxies caused a rush of star formation and previous Hubble observations showed over 1,000 bright, young star clusters bursting to life at the heart of the galaxy pair.

Astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory have discovered that a suspected ring at the center of our galaxy is warped for reasons they cannot explain.

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NGC 2403, a spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis.

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Hickson Compact Group 31, one of 100 compact galaxy groups catalogued by Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson. Credit NASA. Science Astronomy

The 'Cats Eye' nebula, or NGC 6543, is a well-studied example of a 'planetary nebula.' Spitzer Space Telescope.

Some astronomical objects have endearing or quirky nicknames, inspired by mythology or their own appearance. Take, for example, the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), the Sombrero Galaxy, the Horsehead Nebula, or even the Milky Way. However, the vast majority of cosmic objects appear in astronomical catalogs and are given rather less poetic names based on the order of their discovery. Two galaxies are clearly visible in this Hubble image, the larger of which is NGC 4424. This galaxy is cataloged in the New General Catalog of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC), which was compiled in 1888. The NGC is one of the largest astronomical catalogs, which is why so many Hubble Pictures of the Week feature NGC objects. In total there are 7,840 entries in the catalog and they are also generally the larger, brighter, and more eye-catching objects in the night sky, and hence the ones more easily spotted by early stargazers. The smaller, flatter, bright galaxy sitting just below NGC 4424 is named

This painterly portrait of a star-forming cloud, called NGC 346, is a combination of multiwavelength light from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared), the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope (visible), and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space telescope (X-ray).

Large Magellanic Cloud, galaxy

A composite image from NASA's Chandra and Spitzer space telescopes shows the dusty remains of a collapsed star, a supernova remnant called G54.1+0.3. The white source at the center is a dead star called a pulsar.

This image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows NGC 6744, one of the galaxies most similar to our Milky Way in the local universe.

The Triangulum Galaxy, also known as Messier 33 or NGC 598, is a spiral galaxy about 3

The galaxy pictured here is NGC 4424, located in the constellation of Virgo. It is not visible with the naked eye but has been captured here with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Although it may not be obvious from this image, NGC 4424 is in fact a spiral galaxy. In this image it is seen more or less edge on, but from above you would be able to see the arms of the galaxy wrapping around its centre to give the characteristic spiral form . In 2012 astronomers observed a supernova in NGC 4424 — a violent explosion marking the end of a star’s life. During a supernova explosion, a single star can often outshine an entire galaxy. However, the supernovain NGC 4424, dubbed SN 2012cg, cannot be seen here as the image was taken ten years prior to the explosion. Along the central region of the galaxy, clouds of dust block the light from distant stars and create dark patches. To the left of NGC 4424 there are two bright objects in the frame. The brightest is another, smaller galaxy known as

Outer Space Purple Galaxy Stars Universe Cosmic Background

This composite image is of spiral galaxy M106 (NGC 4258); optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey is yellow, radio data from the Very Large Array is purple, X-ray data from Chandra is blue, and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is red.

This image shows two merging galaxies known as Arp 302, also called VV 340. It is composed of images from three Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) channels IRAC channel 1 in blue, IRAC channel 2 in green and IRAC channel 3 in red.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope imaged the mysterious ring around magnetar SGR 1900+14 in infrared light.

Messier 82, a starburst galaxy.

Disintegrating Galaxy

Westerlund 2 Star Cluster

In celebration of the 27th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, astronomers used the legendary telescope to take a portrait of a stunning pair of spiral galaxies. This starry pair offers a glimpse of what our Milky Way galaxy would look like to an outside observer. The edge-on galaxy is called NGC 4302, and the tilted galaxy is NGC 4298. These galaxies look quite different because we see them angled at different positions on the sky. They are actually very similar in terms of their structure and contents. From our view on Earth, researchers report an inclination of 90 degrees for NGC 4302, which is exactly edge on. NGC 4298 is tilted 70 degrees. In NGC 4298, the telltale, pinwheel-like structure is visible, but it's not as prominent as in some other spiral galaxies. In the edge-on NGC 4302, dust in the disk is silhouetted against rich lanes of stars. Absorption by dust makes the galaxy appear darker and redder than its companion. A large blue pa

The bulk of a galaxy called Messier 82 (M82), or the 'Cigar galaxy,' is seen in visible-light data captured by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona.

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NGC 7331 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Pegasus

This image from NASA's Herschel, was taken looking towards a region of our Milky Way galaxy in the Eagle constellation, closer to the galactic center than our sun. Here, we see the outstanding end products of the stellar assembly line.

A huge galaxy, larger even than M31, M101 is 25 million light years distant. The arms surrounding the bright nucleus are quite faint and require skill to show properly. Many more distant galaxies can be seen surrounding M101 in the background.

Stars and spiral galaxy in a free space. Elements of this image furnished by NASA.. Stars and spiral galaxy in a free space.

This image shows the merger of two galaxies, known as NGC 7752 (larger) and NGC 7753 (smaller), also collectively called Arp86. It is composed of images from three Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) channels IRAC channel 1 in blue, IRAC channel 2 in green and IRAC channel 3 in red.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope finds a delicate flower in the Ring Nebula, as shown in this image. The outer shell of this planetary nebula looks surprisingly similar to the delicate petals of a camellia blossom.

Image of the Andromeda galaxy, M31, captured by NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mosaic covers an area equivalent to more than 100 full moons. Credit NASA. Science Astronomy

The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image. The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. Hubble and Spitzer.

The Sculptor Galaxy, NGC 253 in the constellation Sculptor

This false-color infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows little 'dwarf galaxies' forming in the 'tails' of two larger galaxies that are colliding together.

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This image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (insets) shows spiral galaxy NGC 7331, center, where astronomers observed the unusual supernova SN 2014C.

A Brilliant Ring Galaxy

The M83 stellar tidal stream. The image shows a portion of Southern Pinwheel Galaxy northern stellar tidal stream with numerous resolved stars.

In this composite image of spiral galaxy M106 (NGC 4258), optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey is shown as yellow, radio data from the Very Large Array appears as purple, X-ray data from Chandra is coded blue, and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope appears red. Two anomalous arms, which arent visible at optical wavelengths, appear as purple and blue emission.

Messier 106, a Seyfert II galaxy.

Milky Way galaxy, illustration

AM 1316-241 is made up of two interacting galaxiesa spiral galaxy (on the left of the frame) in front of an elliptical galaxy (on the right of the frame). This image is part of a large collection of images of merging galaxies taken by NASA's Hubble.

Stunning details of the face-on spiral galaxy, cataloged as NGC 1309, are captured in this color image.

Messier 106 spiral galaxy.

The subject of this new Hubble image is NGC 5474, a dwarf galaxy located 21 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). This beautiful image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The term "dwarf galaxy" may sound diminutive, but don't let that fool you NGC 5474 contains several billion stars! However, when compared to the Milky Way with its hundreds of billions of stars, NGC 5474 does indeed seem relatively small. NGC 5474 itself is part of the Messier 101 Group. The brightest galaxy within this group is the well-known spiral Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, heic0602). This galaxy's prominent, well-defined arms classify it as a "grand design galaxy", along with other spirals Messier 81 (heic0710) and Messier 74 (heic0719). Also within this group are Messier 101's galactic neighbours. It is possible that gravitational interactions with these companion galaxies have had some influence on providing Messier 101 with its st

NGC 2841, spiral galaxy in Ursa Major. NGC 2841 is a compact flocculent spiral galaxy, a member of the nearby Leo cloud.

Colliding galaxies, Supernova Core pulsar neutron star. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Retouched image

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A leggy cosmic creature comes out of hiding in this new infrared view from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The spiral beauty, called IC 342 and sometimes the 'hidden galaxy,' is shrouded behind our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

This image provides the clearest ever view of galaxy NGC 949, which lies over 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum. The galaxy has an unusual shape, made more obscure due to its inclination. From our point of view, it is difficult to discern exactly what type of galaxy NGC 949 is, but it is certainly a disk galaxy of some kind, most likely a spiral. NGC 949 was first discovered by Sir William Herschel on September 21, 1786, using an 18.7-inch reflecting telescope. The galaxy was one of about 3,000 objects Herschel cataloged as "nebulae" during an intense and systematic deep sky survey, the results of which eventually formed the bulk of the New General Catalogue (NGC). Taken with Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), this image shows extraordinary detail. This detail allows us to see a strange asymmetric alignment in the dark lanes of dust that snake across the galaxy. The top-right half of the galaxy appears considerably more marbled with dust

Silver Dollar Galaxy: NGC 253 Located 10 million light-years away in the southern constellation Sculptor, the Silver Dollar galaxy, or NGC 253, is one of the brightest spiral galaxies in the night sky. In this edge-on view from NASAs Galaxy Evolution Explorer, the wisps of blue represent relatively dustless areas of the galaxy that are actively forming stars. Areas of the galaxy with a soft golden glow indicate regions where the far-ultraviolet is heavily obscured by dust particles.

This ultraviolet image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is of the large face on spiral galaxy NGC 3344. The inner spiral arms are wrapped so tightly that they are difficult to distinguish.

Image release January 11, 2012 A new Hubble Space Telescope image centers on the 100-million-solar-mass black hole at the hub of the neighboring spiral galaxy M31, or the Andromeda galaxy, one of the few galaxies outside the Milky Way visible to the naked eye and the only other giant galaxy in the Local Group. This is the sharpest visible-light image ever made of the nucleus of an external galaxy. The Hubble image is being presented today at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. To read more go to a href= http //www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ultra-blue.html rel= nofollow www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ultra-blue.html /a b a href= http //www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html rel= nofollow NASA image use policy. /a /b b a href= http //www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html rel= nofollow NASA Goddard Space Flight Center /a /b enables NASAs mission through four scientific endeavors Earth Science, Heliophy

Astrophotography, Spiral galaxy Messier 31 or Andromeda Galaxy

Far beyond the stars in the constellation of Leo (The Lion) is irregular galaxy IC 559. IC 559 is not your everyday galaxy. With its irregular shape and bright blue spattering of stars, it is a fascinating galactic anomaly. It may look like sparse cloud, but it is in fact full of gas and dust which is spawning new stars. Discovered in 1893, IC 559 lacks the symmetrical spiral appearance of some of its galactic peers and not does not conform to a regular shape. It is actually classified as a type Sm” galaxy — an irregular galaxy with some evidence for a spiral structure. Irregular galaxies make up about a quarter of all known galaxies and do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence. Most of these uniquely shaped galaxies were not always so — IC 559 may have once been a conventional spiral galaxy that was then distorted and twisted by the gravity of a nearby cosmic companion. This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, combin

This new view of spiral galaxy IC 342, also known as Caldwell 5, includes data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. IC 342 lies 7 million light-years away in the Camelopardalis constellation.

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Fireworks shows are not just confined to Earths skies. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular fireworks display in a small, nearby galaxy, which resembles a July 4th skyrocket. A firestorm of star birth is lighting up one end of the diminutive galaxy Kiso 5639. The dwarf galaxy is shaped like a flattened pancake, but because it is tilted edge-on, it resembles a skyrocket, with a brilliant blazing head and a long, star-studded tail. Kiso 5639 is a rare, nearby example of elongated galaxies that occur in abundance at larger distances, where we observe the universe during earlier epochs. Astronomers suggest that the frenzied star birth is sparked by intergalactic gas raining on one end of the galaxy as it drifts through space. “I think Kiso 5639 is a beautiful, up-close example of what must have been common long ago,” said lead researcher Debra Elmegreen of Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York. “The current thinking is that galaxies in the early universe grow from

Sprawling across the constellation Vela is a complex of dark, dense clouds of dust and gas. The complex is called the Vela Molecular Cloud Ridge. This ridge may form part of the edge of the Orion spiral arm spur in our Milky Way galaxy. WISE.

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IC 342 is a challenging cosmic target. Although it is bright, the galaxy sits near the equator of the Milky Ways galactic disk, where the sky is thick with glowing cosmic gas, bright stars, and dark, obscuring dust. In order for astronomers to see the intricate spiral structure of IC 342, they must gaze through a large amount of material contained within our own galaxy — no easy feat! As a result IC 342 is relatively difficult to spot and image, giving rise to its intriguing nickname the “Hidden Galaxy.” Located very close (in astronomical terms) to the Milky Way, this sweeping spiral galaxy would be among the brightest in the sky were it not for its dust-obscured location. The galaxy is very active, as indicated by the range of colors visible in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, depicting the very central region of the galaxy. A beautiful mixture of hot, blue star-forming regions, redder, cooler regions of gas, and dark lanes of opaque dust can be seen, all swirling togethe

This image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Explorer features two stunning galaxies engaged in an intergalactic dance. The galaxies, Messier 81 and Messier 82, swept by each other a few hundred million years ago.

The Great Galaxy in Andromeda, or M 31 (Messier 31), the nearest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. Two companion galaxies, M 32 (lower center) and M 110 (upper right corner), accompany Andromeda; both are dwarf ellipticals.

This single orbit exposure, ultraviolet color image of Messier 101 was taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer on June 20, 2003. Messier 101 is a large spiral galaxy located 20 million light-years from Earth.

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