Many photographs of other galaxies reveal overall light patterns and general
galactic structure, but astronomers struggle to capture individually more than
the brightest of the billions of stars a galaxy can contain. Just compare the
two pictures on this page.
The photograph above certainly appears to show a lot of detail. The galaxy,
called NGC 300, is about 6.5 million light-years away -- a neighbor in cosmic
terms. It is similar to our own Milky Way in structure, with grand spiral arms.
The above image was taken by a ground-based telescope and is part of the Digitized
Sky Survey. Click here
to see a larger version of it.
Now below is a new Hubble Space Telescope image, released today. It is a close-up
of one part of the same galaxy, revealing myriad points of light and, as a bonus,
another spiral galaxy in the background (lower right). Click here
to see a larger version of the Hubble close-up.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team
(AURA/STScI)
