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Galaxies, giants of the Universe
Spiral Galaxy M100  The core of the grand design spiral galaxy M100, as imaged by Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in its high resolution channel. The WFPC-2 contains modified optics that correct for Hubble's previously blurry vision, allowing the telescope for the first time to cleanly resolve faint structure as small as 30 light-years across in a galaxy which is tens of millions of light years away. The image was taken on December 31, 1993. Young and Old Stars Found in Andromeda's Halo  The deepest visible-light image ever taken of the sky resolves approximately 300,000 stars in the halo of the nearest neighboring spiral galaxy, Andromeda (M31). The halo is a spherical cloud of stars around Andromeda, located 2.5 million light-years from Earth. Celestial Composition  Amid a backdrop of far-off galaxies, the majestic dusty spiral, NGC 3370, looms in the foreground. Recent observations show intricate spiral arm structure spotted with hot areas of new star formation. But this galaxy is more than just a pretty face. Nearly 10 years earlier NGC 3370, in the constellation Leo, hosted a bright exploding star.
Supernova Blast Bonanza in a Nearby Galaxy  The nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 is a hotbed of vigorous star birth activity which blows huge bubbles and super-bubbles that riddle the main body of the galaxy. The galaxy’s vigorous "star factories" are also manufacturing brilliant blue star clusters. This galaxy had a sudden and relatively recent onset of star birth 25 million years ago, which subsided about the time the very earliest human ancestors appeared on Earth. An Abrasive Collision Gives One Galaxy a "Black Eye"  A collision of two galaxies has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well as bizarre internal motions. Messier 64 (M64) has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, giving rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy. Magnificent Details in a Dusty Spiral Galaxy   The majestic spiral galaxy NGC 4414
"Starry Night" Space phenomenon imitates art  "Starry Night", Vincent van Gogh's famous painting, is renowned for its bold whorls of light sweeping across a raging night sky. Although this image of the heavens came only from the artist's restless imagination, this picture bears remarkable similarities to the van Gogh work, complete with never-before-seen spirals of dust swirling across trillions of miles of interstellar space. Galaxies galore  This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a 'deep' core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years. Star formation in a neighbor galaxy  The iridescent tapestry of star birth in a neighboring galaxy in this view of glowing gas, dark dust clouds, and young, hot stars. This star-forming region, catalogued as N11B lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, located only 160,000 light-years from Earth.
Hubble Mosaic of the Majestic Sombrero Galaxy  One of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy. The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. View of the Distant Universe  A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies makes for a spellbinding picture. Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away. A Grazing Encounter Between two Spiral Galaxies  In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night.
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