NASA shares stunning image of ‘big, beautiful’ Blue Galaxy 200,000 light years away

A stunning image of the “big, beautiful and blue” galaxy GC 2336 was recently captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NASA said in a press statement that the spiral armed galaxy is quite similar in terms of look to our own Milky Way with its planetary distribution. But the “quintessential galaxy” is nearly 200,000 light-years across and at a distance of 100 million light-years. The galaxy is located in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), said NASA. 

In the image shared by NASA, you can spot a bright yellow orb in the centre and the galaxy has millions of shiny dots throughout its arms. These shiny dots are stars. NASA sad that the outer stars, bright silver/yellow towards the arm, are younger stars. 

Hubble has entered its blue period by capturing this quintessential galaxy — big, beautiful, & blue! 

Its spiral arms glitter with young stars, visible in their bright blue light.

This barred spiral galaxy stretches an immense 200K light-years across: https://t.co/u4EaGXJ7Fs pic.twitter.com/yCRcwuerl9

— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) March 5, 2021

According to NASA, the NGC 2336 was discovered by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel in 1876. NASA said that Tempel had used a 28-centimetre telescope to discover this galaxy. Notably, the NGC 2336 has always attracted the interest of astronomers it has also experienced a Type-Ia supernova.

Meanwhile, Hubble Space Telescope has succeeded in snapping some breathtaking images of our cosmos and beyond. In February, Hubble telescope had captured Stingray Nebula. It is to be noted that Hubble captured two images of Stingray Nebula in the last 20 years. The first image was captured with the Wide Field in March 1996. In that image, the ageing star appeared in good shape. The second image was captured in 2020 and in that image the central star of Stingray nebula was seen in its final stages of life.