The Hubble Space Telescope is an incredible thing. Launched 30 years ago, it flies around the earth travelling at around 17,000 miles per hour snapping pictures deep into space. How deep? Well, at least 67 million light-years – or 393,867,900,000,000,000,000 miles. Yup, that’s a whole lot of zeros. But that’s how far away the NGC 2275 galaxy is from Earth. And the Hubble just shot and sent back its portrait.
The spiral pattern in the NGC 2775 galaxy, NASA/ESA says is notable because of its “delicate, feathery nature” and that it indicates the recent history of star formations in the galaxy. And, well, science aside, it sure is pretty.
Although NGC 2775 doesn’t have defined “arms” like our own Milky Way, although it’s still considered to be a spiral galaxy due to the obvious pattern. It may evolve into something resembling our home galaxy, and it may indeed already have done, given that we’re seeing how NGC 2775 looked 67 million years ago. Well, even if Canon can’t get a camera up in the sky, at least we still have the Hubble! [via BGR – Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt]
