Galaxies: Wilds Triplet from Hubble
8.11.2022

How many galaxies are interacting here? This grouping of galaxies is called the Wild Triplet, not only for the discoverer, but for the number of bright galaxies that appear. It had been assumed that...

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217
21.02.2022

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, featured here, was captured in spectacular detail in this image taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.

Galaxy Zoo Catalogs the Universe
26.10.2009

You, too, can Zoo. The Galaxy Zoo project has been enabling citizen scientists -- inquisitive people like yourself armed with only a web browser-- to sort through the universe. Specifically, after a brief training session...

3C 295: X-rays From A Giant Galaxy
25.11.1999

Did this galaxy eat too much? Five billion light-years away, the giant elliptical galaxy 3C295 is a prodigious source of energy at radio wavelengths. Bright knots of X-ray emission are also seen at the center of this false-color Chandra Observatory image of the region.

APOD: 2023 September 13 Б NGC 4632: Galaxy with a Hidden Polar Ring
13.09.2023

Galaxy NGC 4632 hides a secret from optical telescopes. It is surrounded by a ring of cool hydrogen gas orbiting at 90 degrees to its spiral disk. Such polar ring galaxies have previously been discovered using starlight. However, NGC 4632 is among the first in which a radio telescope survey revealed a polar ring.

Spiral Galaxy M96 from Hubble
12.06.2019

Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting...

The Hercules Cluster of Galaxies
25.06.2014

These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars.

NGC 2623: Galaxy Merger from Hubble
9.11.2009

Where do stars form when galaxies collide? To help find out, astronomers imaged the nearby galaxy merger NGC 2623 in high resolution with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2007. Analysis of this Hubble image...

Galaxies, Stars, and Dust
13.10.2012

Spiky stars and spooky shapes abound in this deep cosmic skyscape. Its well-composed field of view covers about 2 Full Moons on the sky toward the constellation Pegasus. Of course the brighter stars show diffraction spikes, the commonly seen effect of internal supports in reflecting telescopes, and lie well within our own Milky Way galaxy.

M33: Spiral Galaxy in Triangulum
24.09.2003

The small constellation Triangulum in the northern sky harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33's diameter spans over 50,000 light-years, making it third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way.