Tuesday, November 22, 2016

NASA: Hubble Spies a Spiral Galaxy

The view must be at an oblique angle when that doesn't look like much of a spiral but the fascination is the immense number of stars in the formation while most of space has nothing in it or nothing immediately observable.



Spiral galaxy NGC 3274 is a relatively faint galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion).  This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image comes courtesy of Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), whose multi-color vision allows astronomers to study a wide range of targets, from nearby star formation to galaxies in the most remote regions of the cosmos.

This image combines observations gathered in five different filters, bringing together ultraviolet, visible and infrared light to show off NGC 3274 in all its glory.  NGC 3274 was discovered by Wilhelm Herschel in 1783.  The galaxy PGC 213714 is also visible on the upper right of the frame, located much farther away from Earth.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti
Text Credit: ESA (European Space Agency)

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