Get lost in Hubble telescope's breathtaking view of stars being born
The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy is a swirling beacon of new beginnings.
I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to pack my gear, crawl into a cryogenic sleep pod and take a spaceship to some other galaxy. I've got my eyes on a real looker: the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, also less romantically known as NGC 1365.
The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), captured a stunning portrait of NGC 1365, a faraway place where stars form.
"The bright, light-blue regions indicate the presence of hundreds of baby stars that formed from coalescing gas and dust within the galaxy's outer arms," ESA said in a statement shared by NASA on Friday. That sounds so sweet.
The image comes from a Hubble collaboration with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile. The Phangs (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies ) joint survey "is expected to uncover and clarify many of the links between cold gas clouds, star formation, and the overall shape and morphology of galaxies," according to ESA.
The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy is located in the constellation Fornax (the furnace), which seems like it would be cozy. It's 60 million light-years from Earth. That should give me enough space to stretch out a little.
Just kidding, Earth. I still love you.