Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Filippenko (University of California - Berkeley), and D. Sand (University of Arizona); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
Here’s Hubble doing what Hubble does best.
Some of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most famous and stunning images are of distant galaxies, and this one is drop-dead gorgeous too.
This new image features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, which is located about 53 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major.
The “arms” of grand design spirals appear to wind around and into the galaxy’s nucleus.
A ‘Grand Design’ spiral galaxy is a type of spiral galaxy with prominent and well-defined spiral arms. The arms of this galaxy look as though they are winding around and spiraling out from the galaxy’s center, like a classic spiral galaxy. Other spiral galaxies might have multiple arms or be more “flocculent” or fluffy. But about 10% of spiral galaxies are considered Grand Design Spirals.
Take a closer look at NGC 3631 and you can see bright star forming regions along the inner part of the spiral arms, and the new stars show up as a bright blue (remember the old astronomical adage: new and blue, red and dead.)
The image includes data taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Lead image caption: Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Filippenko (University of California – Berkeley), and D. Sand (University of Arizona); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
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