Space

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Two Spiral Galaxies

NASA unveiled a new image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that shows two bright star-forming galaxies. The two galaxies are known as Arp 303. However, each galaxy has its individual name – IC 563 and IC 564.

Eva Lund

• 1 min read
Hubble Space Telescope Captures Two Spiral Galaxies
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Larson (STScI), and J. Dalcanton (University of Washington)

NASA unveiled a new image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that shows two bright star-forming galaxies. The two galaxies are known as Arp 303. However, each galaxy has its individual name – IC 563 on the bottom right and IC 564 on the top left.

The galaxies are located in the direction of the constellation Sextans at a distance of 275 million light-years from Earth.

This image is composed of two separate Hubble observations of the galaxies. The first used the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to study the star-forming regions in infrared light (red, orange, and green colors). The second used Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to study bright galaxies across the sky (the blue color).

According to the agency, they were looking for promising candidates that other telescopes, as well as the successor of Hubble – the James Webb Space Telescope – could study.