Stunning Galaxies in Space

High-resolution images of different spiral and ring galaxies, showcasing vibrant colors and cosmic structures from deep space, with distant stars and galaxies.

This image shows the diverse collection of galaxies in a galaxy cluster called Abell S0740, located more than 450 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The giant elliptical galaxy ESO 325-G004 looms large at the cluster's center. This galaxy is as massive as 100 billion suns. Hubble resolves thousands of globular star clusters orbiting ESO 325-G004. Globular clusters are compact groups of hundreds of thousands of stars that are gravitationally bound together. At the galaxy's d
This image shows the diverse collection of galaxies in a galaxy cluster called Abell S0740, located more than 450 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The giant elliptical galaxy ESO 325-G004 looms large at the cluster's center. This galaxy is as massive as 100 billion suns. Hubble resolves thousands of globular star clusters orbiting ESO 325-G004. Globular clusters are compact groups of hundreds of thousands of stars that are gravitationally bound together. At the galaxy's d
181 assets in this story
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Satellite view of ring galaxies in space
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NASA image of spiral galaxy in outer space.
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NGC 3521, spiral galaxy in Leo.
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Bode s Galaxy, M81, Spiral galaxy constellation Ursa Major Bode s Galaxy, M81, Spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Elements of this image are furnished by NASA. Copyright: xZoonar.com/AleksandarxVukicevicx 22369276
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This shining disk of a spiral galaxy sits approximately 25 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Sculptor. Named NGC 24, the galaxy was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1785, and measures some 40,000 light-years across. This picture was taken using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys, known as ACS for short. It shows NGC 24 in detail, highlighting the blue bursts (young stars), dark lanes (cosmic dust), and red bubbles (hydrogen gas) of material peppered throughout the galaxys spiral arms. Numerous distant galaxies can also been seen hovering around NGC 24s perimeter. However, there may be more to this picture than first meets the eye. Astronomers suspect that spiral galaxies like NGC 24 and the Milky Way are surrounded by, and contained within, extended haloes of dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that cannot be seen; instead, it reveals itself via its gravitational interactions with surrounding
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This image shows the diverse collection of galaxies in a galaxy cluster called Abell S0740, located more than 450 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The giant elliptical galaxy ESO 325-G004 looms large at the cluster's center. This galaxy is as massive as 100 billion suns. Hubble resolves thousands of globular star clusters orbiting ESO 325-G004. Globular clusters are compact groups of hundreds of thousands of stars that are gravitationally bound together. At the galaxy's d
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Andromeda Galaxy
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This new Hubble image shows a peculiar galaxy known as NGC 660, located around 45 million light-years away from us. NGC 660 is classified as a "polar ring galaxy", meaning that it has a belt of gas and stars around its centre that it ripped from a near neighbour during a clash about one billion years ago. The first polar ring galaxy was observed in 1978 and only around a dozen more have been discovered since then, making them something of a cosmic rarity. Unfortunately, NGC 660s polar ring cannot be seen in this image, but has plenty of other features that make it of interest to astronomers - its central bulge is strangely off-kilter and, perhaps more intriguingly, it is thought to harbour exceptionally large amounts of dark matter. In addition, in late 2012 astronomers observed a massive outburst emanating from NGC 660 that was around ten times as bright as a supernova explosion. This burst was thought to be caused by a massive jet shooting out of the supermassive black hole at the c
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galaxy in a free space Stars of a planet and galaxy in a free space Elements of this image furnished by NASA Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 11659128
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Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
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The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years from Earth ... it is the 'sister' galaxy to our Milky Way Galaxy. This image required six months to create, being assembled from 19 seperate panels. This image was made with a 14.5' classical cassegrain telescope and an SBIG STL 11K CCD camera plus a Stellarvue 6' refractor for the surrounding stellar field. Images taken from Foresthill, CA.
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Messier 106 (also known as NGC 4258) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici and is a Seyfert II galaxy, which means that due to x-rays and unusual emission lines detected, it is suspected that part of the galaxy is falling into a supermassive black hole in the center
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observes some of the most beautiful galaxies in our skies spirals sparkling with bright stellar nurseries, violent duos ripping gas and stars away from one another as they tangle together, and ethereal irregular galaxies that hang like flocks of birds suspended in the blackness of space. However, galaxies, like humans, are not all supermodels. This little spiral, known as NGC 4102, has a different kind of appeal, with its tightly-wound spiral arms and understated, but charming, appearance. NGC 4102 lies in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). It contains what is known as a LINER, or low-ionization nuclear emission-line region, meaning that its nucleus emits particular types of radiation specifically, emission from weakly-ionized or neutral atoms of certain elements. Even in this sense, NGC 4102 is not special; around one third of all nearby galaxies are thought to be LINER galaxies. Many LINER galaxies also contain intense r
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Spiral galaxy M101
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NGC 4639 is a beautiful example of a type of galaxy known as a barred spiral. It lies over 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo and is one of about 1,500 galaxies that make up the Virgo Cluster. In this image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, one can clearly see the bar running through the bright, round core of the galaxy. Bars are found in around two-thirds of spiral galaxies, and are thought to be a natural phase in their evolution. The galaxys spiral arms are sprinkled with bright regions of active star formation. Each of these tiny jewels is actually several hundred light-years across and contains hundreds or thousands of newly formed stars. But NGC 4639 also conceals a dark secret in its core — a massive black hole that is consuming the surrounding gas. This is known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN), and is revealed by characteristic features in the spectrum of light from the galaxy and by X-rays produced close to the black hole as the hot gas
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Celestial Objects
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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 12158190
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The Sculptor Galaxy, NGC 253.
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Andromeda galaxy amidst shiny stars in space
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Galaxy, sky and space technology science with stars, dust and star cluster of universe in infinity in the sky. Nebula light, solar system and milky way planets in beauty cosmos satellite
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Image of glowing galaxy against black space and stars
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Andromeda Galaxy¶ÿand surrounding stars
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In this image the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope takes a close look at the spiral galaxy NGC 4217, located 60 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy is seen almost perfectly edge on and is a perfect candidate for studying the nature of extraplanar dust structures the patterns of gas and dust above and below the plane on the galaxy, seen here as brown wisps coming off NGC 4217. These tentacle-like filaments are visible in the Hubble image only because the contrast with their surroundings is so high. This implies that the structures are denser than their surroundings. The image shows dozens of dust structures some of which reach as far as 7,000 light-years away from the central plane. Typically the structures have a length of about 1,000 light-years and are about 400 light-years in width. Some of the dust filaments are round or irregular clouds, others are vertical columns, loop-like structures or vertical cones. These structures can help astronomers to identify the mechanism
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To view a video of this story go to a href= http //www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8448332724 www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8448332724 /a Working with astronomical image processors at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., renowned astro-photographer Robert Gendler has taken science data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive and combined it with his own ground-based observations to assemble a photo illustration of the magnificent spiral galaxy M106. Gendler retrieved archival Hubble images of M106 to assemble a mosaic of the center of the galaxy. He then used his own and fellow astro-photographer Jay GaBany's observations of M106 to combine with the Hubble data in areas where there was less coverage, and finally, to fill in the holes and gaps where no Hubble data existed. The center of the galaxy is composed almost entirely of HST data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Camera 3, and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 detectors. The outer spiral arms are
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Galaxy NGC 1068 is shown in visible light and X-rays in this composite image. High-energy X-rays (magenta) captured by NASA's NuSTAR, are overlaid on visible-light images from both NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
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This composite of the giant barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is 522,000 light-years across, making it about five times the size of the Milky Way.
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The Andromeda Galaxy core, Messier 31.
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Image of glowing galaxy against black space and stars
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Celestial Objects
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A bright star in the galaxy
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The Impending Destruction of a Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
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Interacting Spiral Galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163. In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night. The near-collision has been caught in images taken by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The larger and more massive galaxy is cataloged as NGC 2207 (on the left in the Hubble Heritage image), and the smaller one on the right is IC 2163. Strong tidal forces from NGC 2207 have distorted the shape of IC 2163, flinging out stars and gas into long streamers stretching out a hundred thousand light-years
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Colliding Galaxies of Arp 272
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Portrait of a Starburst Galaxy, Digital Composite
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The irregular galaxy NGC 1427A is a spectacular example of the stellar rumble. Under the gravitational grasp of a large gang of galaxies, called the Fornax cluster, the small bluish galaxy is plunging headlong into the group at 600 kilometers per second or nearly 400 miles per second.
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The galaxy NGC 4622, a spiral galaxy that may rotate in the opposite direction from what was expected. Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
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Starburst Galaxy M82
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Large Magellanic Cloud
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DMPP exoplanet search, illustration
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This picture of the galaxy UGC 10214 was was taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which was installed aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in March 2002 during HST Servicing Mission 3B (STS-109 mission). Dubbed the Tadpole, this spiral galaxy is unlike the textbook images of stately galaxies. Its distorted shape was caused by a small interloper, a very blue, compact galaxy visible in the upper left corner of the more massive Tadpole. The Tadpole resides about 420 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. Seen shining through the Tadpole's disk, the tiny intruder is likely a hit-and-run galaxy that is now leaving the scene of the accident. Strong gravitational forces from the interaction created the long tail of debris, consisting of stars and gas that stretch our more than 280,000 light-years. The galactic carnage and torrent of star birth are playing out against a spectacular backdrop a wallpaper pattern of 6,000 galaxies. These galaxies represent twice the nu
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Long exposure of Andromeda Galaxy
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Coma Cluster of Galaxies
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Two Galaxies Separated by Time and Space
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February 17, 2012 Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope may have found evidence for a cluster of young, blue stars encircling HLX-1, one of the first intermediate-mass black holes ever discovered. Astronomers believe the black hole may once have been at the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. The discovery of the black hole and the possible star cluster has important implications for understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies To read more go to a href= http //www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/shredded-relic.html rel= nofollow www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/shredded-relic.... /a
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The perfectly picturesque spiral galaxy known as Messier 81, or M81, looks sharp in this new composite from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
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This ultraviolet image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows the interacting pair NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy, and the small elliptical companion galaxy NGC 1097A.
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NGC 2903 spiral galaxy
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This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and shows a starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. This galaxy lies some 300 million light-years away from us, and is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst. Normal galaxies produce only a couple of new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce a hundred times more than that. As MCG+07-33-027 is seen face-on, the galaxys spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible and easy for astronomers to study. In order to form newborn stars, the parent galaxy has to hold a large reservoir of gas, which is slowly depleted to spawn stars over time. For galaxies in a state of starburst, this intense period of star formation has to be triggered somehow — often this happens due to a collision with another galaxy. MCG+07-33-027, however, is special; while many galaxies are located within a large cluster of galaxies, MCG+
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This panoramic view encompasses the entire sky as seen by Two Micron All-Sky Survey. The measured brightnesses of half a billion stars (points) have been combined into colors representing three distinct wavelengths of infrared light: blue at 1.2 microns, green at 1.6 microns microns, and red at 2.2 microns. This image is centered on the core of our own Milky Way galaxy, toward the constellation of Sagittarius. The reddish stars seemingly hovering in the middle of the Milky Way's disc, many of th
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Andromeda Galaxy with companions.
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The Andromeda Galaxy, spiral galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda Messier 31 M31
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The gamma-ray output from Cen A's lobes exceeds their radio output by more than ten times. High-energy gamma rays detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope are depicted as purple in this gamma ray/optical composite of the galaxy.
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Starry Sky. Star objects, galaxies, and all the heavenly bodies. Background of stars and galaxies, the Milky Way Starry Sky. Star objects, galaxies, and all the heavenly bodies. Background of stars and galaxies, the Milky Way. Copyright: xZoonar.com/DmitryixBogdanovx 11628379
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M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, in a "deep" (long) exposure, showing "triangular appendages" at either end, possibly clouds of stars. This galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to our own, and is the largest in the Local Group. M32 (above) and M110 (below) accompany it.
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Messier 81, Bode's Galaxy (left) and Messier 82, The Cigar Galaxy (right).
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Andromeda Galaxy and surrounding stars
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Image Of Galaxy Pair Ngc3314From The Hubble Telescope.
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M110 Andromeda Galaxy and a sky full of stars
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NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Mission celebrates its sixth anniversary studying galaxies beyond our Milky Way through its sensitive ultraviolet telescope, the only such far-ultraviolet detector in space. Pictured here, the galaxy NGC598 known as M33.
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PGC 1852 galaxy in the constellation Pisces.
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galaxy in a free space Stars of a planet and galaxy in a free space Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 11720737
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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy just over 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is of about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. It was first discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and added to Charles Messiers famous catalogue of astronomical objects just four days later. The galaxy resembles a giant maelstrom of glowing gas, rippled with dark dust that swirls inwards towards the nucleus. Messier 96 is a very asymmetric galaxy; its dust and gas are unevenly spread throughout its weak spiral arms, and its core is not exactly at the galactic center. Its arms are also asymmetrical, thought to have been influenced by the gravitational pull of other galaxies within the same group as Messier 96. This group, named the M96 Group, also includes the bright galaxies Messier 105 and Messier 95, as well as a number of smaller and fainter galaxies. It is the nearest group containing both bright spirals and
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Galaxy Group. Stephan's Quintet Galactic wreckage. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Retouched image
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Spiral Galaxies Interact
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Galaxy NGC 1672
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Despite being less famous than their elliptical and spiral galactic cousins, irregular dwarf galaxies, such as the one captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, are actually one of the most common types of galaxy in the universe. Known as UGC 4459, this dwarf galaxy is located approximately 11 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear), a constellation that is also home to the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), the Owl Nebula (M97), Messier 81, Messier 82 and several other galaxies all part of the M81 group. UGC 4459s diffused and disorganized appearance is characteristic of an irregular dwarf galaxy. Lacking a distinctive structure or shape, irregular dwarf galaxies are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge — a huge, tightly packed central group of stars — nor any trace of spiral arms — regions of stars extending from the center of the galaxy. Astronomers suspect that some irregular dwarf galaxies were once spiral or elliptical
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Messier 51, the Whrlpool Galaxy.
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The Andromeda Galaxy
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NASA release April 1, 2010 The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5128, show here in visible light, hosts the radio source known as Centaurus A. Located 12 million light-years away, it is one of the closest active galaxies.
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Galaxy NGC 4579 was captured by the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxy Survey, or Sings, Legacy project using the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared array camera. I
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The galaxy, called NGC 1097, is located 50 million light-years away. It is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars. The 'eye' at the center of the galaxy is a black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. Spitzer.
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Messier 83 and its northern stellar tidal stream.
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The galaxy NGC 3310. It is one of several starburst galaxies, which are hotbeds of star formation. Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
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Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are studying the colors of star clusters to determine the age and history of starburst galaxies, a technique somewhat similar to the process of learning the age of a tree by counting its rings. One such galaxy, Galaxy NGC 3310, a hotbed of star formation showcased in this HST photograph, is forming clusters of stars at a prodigious rate. The image shows several hundred star clusters, visible as the bright blue diffuse objects tracing the galaxy's spiral arms. Each of these star clusters represents the formation of up to about a million stars, a process that takes less than 100,000 years. In addition, hundreds of individual young stars can be seen throughout the galaxy. The star clusters become redder with age as the most massive and bluest stars exhaust their fuel and burn out. Measurements in this image of the wide range of cluster colors show their ages range between about one million and more that one hundred million years. This s
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The star of this Hubble Picture of the Week is a galaxy known as NGC 4656, located in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). However, it also has a somewhat more interesting and intriguing name: the Hockey Stick Galaxy! The reason for this is a little unclear from this partial view, which shows the bright central region, but the galaxy is actually shaped like an elongated, warped stick, stretching out through space until it curls around at one end to form a striking imitation of a celestial hockey stick. This unusual shape is thought to be due to an interaction between NGC 4656 and a couple of near neighbours, NGC 4631 (otherwise known as The Whale Galaxy) and NGC 4627 (a small elliptical). Galactic interactions can completely reshape a celestial object, shifting and warping its constituent gas, stars, and dust into bizarre and beautiful configurations. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spied a large number of interacting galaxies over the years, from the cosmic
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Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
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This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It would be reasonable to think of this as a single abnormal galaxy, and it was originally classified as such. However, it is in fact a new” galaxy in the process of forming. Two separate galaxies have been gradually drawn together, attracted by gravity, and have collided. We now see them merging into a single structure. As the merging process continues, individual stars are thrown out of their original orbits and placed onto entirely new paths, some very distant from the region of the collision itself. Since the stars produce the light we see, the galaxy” now appears to have a highly chaotic shape. Eventually, this new galaxy will settle down into a stable shape, which may not resemble either of the two original galaxies.
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This galaxy is known as Mrk 820 and is classified as a lenticular galaxy type S0 on the Hubble Tuning Fork. The Hubble Tuning Fork is used to classify galaxies according to their morphology. Elliptical galaxies look like smooth blobs in the sky and lie on the handle of the fork. They are arranged along the handle based on how elliptical they are, with the more spherical galaxies furthest from the tines of the fork, and the more egg-shaped ones closest to the end of the handle where it divides. The two prongs of the tuning fork represent types of unbarred and barred spiral galaxies. Lenticular galaxies like Mrk 820 are in the transition zone between ellipticals and spirals and lie right where the fork divides. A closer look at the appearance of Mrk 820 reveals hints of a spiral structure embedded in a circular halo of stars. Surrounding Mrk 820 in this image is a good sampling of other galaxy types, covering almost every type found on the Hubble Tuning Fork, both elliptical and spiral
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This image combines NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As well as the electric blue ram pressure stripping streaks seen emanating from ESO 137-001, a giant gas stream can be seen extending towards the bottom of the frame, only visible in the X-ray part of the spectrum.
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The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun.
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galaxy in a free space Stars of a planet and galaxy in a free space Copyright: xZoonar.com/gannaxacheretx 11720102
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Cosmic landscape. Nebula. Elements of this image furnished by NASA Outer space, cosmic landscape. Nebula. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Copyright: xZoonar.com/EvgeniixPuzanovx 18468254
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NGC 2841, the Tiger's Eye Galaxy.
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Outer space. Science fiction cosmos. Elements of this image furnished by NASA
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Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
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The spiral galaxy NGC 7252 has a superficial resemblance to an atomic nucleus surrounded by the loops of electronic orbits, and was informally dubbed the "Atoms for Peace" galaxy. These loops are well visible in a wider field of view image. This nickname is quite ironic, as the galaxys past was anything but peaceful. Its peculiar appearance is the result of a collision between two galaxies that took place about a billion years ago, which ripped both galaxies apart. The loop-like outer structures, likely made up of dust and stars flung outwards by the crash, but recalling orbiting electrons in an atom, are partly responsible for the galaxys nickname. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the inner parts of the galaxy, revealing a pinwheel-shaped disk that is rotating in a direction opposite to the rest of the galaxy. This disk resembles a spiral galaxy like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, but is only about 10,000 light-years across — about a tenth of the size of th
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The ring-like swirls of dust filling the Andromeda galaxy stand out colorfully in this new image from the Herschel Space Observatory.
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The Perseus Galaxy Cluster (Abell 426) lies about 250 million light years from Earth towards the northern constellation of Perseus
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By combining the power of a natural lens” in space with the capability of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made a surprising discovery—the first example of very compact yet massive disk-shaped and rotating galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang. Finding a galaxy that is pancake-shaped—much like our own Milky Way—so early in the history of the universe challenges the current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve, say researchers.The galaxy, called MACS 2129-1, is considered dead” because it is no longer making stars. The existence of dead galaxies so early—when the universe was just one-quarter its current age—has long been a puzzle, as the Universe at that time was full of gas and at the peak of the cosmic star formation history. The leading theory has been that they formed in galaxy collisions that efficiently drove all the gas into the center of the collision and turned it into stars.Perhaps we have been blind to
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Spiral galaxy in the constellation Elements furnished by NASA
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Whirpool-Galaxy, Strudelgalaxie, Strudelnebel, Spiralgalaxie, Messier 51A and the interacting galaxy NGC5195 in Canes Venatici. McPBIO McP_BIO_2025_000155 *** Whirpool Galaxy, Swirl galaxy, Swirling mist, Spiral galaxy, Messier 51A and The interacting Galaxy NGC5195 in Canes Venatici McPBIO McP Bio 2025 000155 McPBIO
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This NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope picture shows a galaxy named SBS 1415+437 (also called SDSS CGB 12067.1), located about 45 million light-years from Earth. SBS 1415+437 is a Wolf-Rayet galaxy, a type of star-bursting galaxy with an unusually high number of extremely hot and massive stars known as Wolf-Rayet stars. These stars can be around 20 times as massive as the sun, but seem to be on a mission to shed surplus mass as quickly as possible they blast substantial winds of particles out into space, causing them to dwindle at a rapid rate. A typical star of this type can lose a mass equal to that of our sun in just 100,000 years! These massive stars are also incredibly hot, with surface temperatures some 10 to 40 times that of the sun, and very luminous, glowing at tens of thousands to several million times the brightness of the sun. Many of the brightest and most massive stars in the Milky Way are Wolf-Rayet stars. Because these stars are so intense they d
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The Sombrero Galaxy, an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo.
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Pinwheel Galaxy Messier 101, M101 Pinwheel Galaxy Messier 101, M101 in the constellation Ursa Major Elements of this image are furnished by NASA. Copyright: xZoonar.com/ZoltanxG.xLevayx 22374250
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Spiral galaxy Bodes galaxy, Messier 81 and Messier 82 galaxy in Ursa Major, Bavaria, Germany, Europe
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At the center of this amazing Hubble image is the elliptical galaxy NGC 3610. Surrounding the galaxy are a wealth of other galaxies of all shapes. There are spiral galaxies, galaxies with a bar in their central regions, distorted galaxies and elliptical galaxies, all visible in the background. In fact, almost every bright dot in this image is a galaxy the few foreground stars are clearly distinguishable due to the diffraction spikes (lines radiating from bright light sources in reflecting telescope images) that overlay their images. NGC 3610 is of course the most prominent object in this image and a very interesting one at that! Discovered in 1793 by William Herschel, it was later found that this elliptical galaxy contains a disk. This is very unusual, as disks are one of the main distinguishing features of a spiral galaxy. And the disk in NGC 3610 is remarkably bright. The reason for the peculiar shape of NGC 3610 stems from its formation history. When galaxies form, they usually
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The Galaxy Evolution Explorer specializes in surveying galaxies in ultraviolet light. The telescope surveyed thousands of galaxies before finding three-dozen of these newborns.