The Hubble telescope is probably best known for its incredible close-up images of everything from star formation to Jupiter’s shrinking spots. But my favourite Hubble pics are always the sweeping, broad views of galaxies — and its latest is a real beauty.
What you’re seeing is an edge-on view of spiral galaxy NGC 5023, which lies over 30 million light-years away. Despite the minor distance issue, Hubble was able to get a sharp enough image to count 30,000 of the brightest stars in this galaxy.
That’s a good start, but still falls short of the billions of stars NCG 5023 actually contains. Still, it’s breathtaking to see all the different bodies of this galaxy in one image. I’m so glad they fixed Hubble. [ESA]
Picture: ESA/Hubble & NASA