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A Sea of Spiral Galaxies

A Sea of Spiral Galaxies
This is a Hubble Space Telescope view of a small, random location on the sky, awash largely with spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. This sea of galaxies stretches across billions of light-years. Most of the prominent galaxies look different only because they are tilted at various orientations to Earth, from edge-on to face-on. A few others are involved in mergers. The objects with diffraction spikes are foreground stars in our own galaxy. The image was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) at the same time a much closer pair of spiral galaxies, NGC 4302 and NGC 4298, was being simultaneously photographed by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). These so-called "parallel field" observations increase the efficiency of how the telescope is used when making observations.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    12h21m49.4s
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    14º28'41"
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Coma Berenices
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    The image is about 5 arcminutes wide.

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
    These datasets are from the HST proposal 14913, M. Mutchler, J. Green, Z. Levay, D. Smith, and R. Villard (STScI), and image processing by J. DePasquale (STScI).
  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    HST>ACS/WFC
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    Jan. 2 - 22, 2017
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F606W
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Parallel Field
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Field of galaxies
  • Release Date
    April 20, 2017
  • Science Release
    A New Angle on Two Spiral Galaxies for Hubble’s 27th Birthday
    Read the release
  • Credit
    NASA, ESA, and M. Mutchler (STScI)

Downloads

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  • Full Res, 4000 × 4000
    tiff (15.83 MB)
A Sea of Spiral Galaxies
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

This image is a composite of separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope using the F606W (V) filter to isolating the light in broad wavelength range to produce a monochromatic image.

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Infrared Image of Galaxy Pair NGC 4302 and NGC 4298

Infrared Image of Galaxy Pair NGC 4302 and NGC 4298

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Compass and Scale Image for NGC 4302 and NGC 4298

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Zoom into the Virgo Cluster

Zoom into the Virgo Cluster

This video zooms into the Virgo Cluster of nearly 2,000 galaxies, then into tight Hubble Space Telescope images of spiral galaxies NGC 4302 (left) and NGC 4298 (right) in visible and infrared light. Located approximately 55 million light-years away, the starry pair offers a...

Perspectives on Spiral Galaxies

Perspectives on Spiral Galaxies

Spiral galaxies are pancake-shaped collections of billions of stars, along with vast clouds of gas and dust. This video illustrates how their observed shapes can differ greatly depending upon the angle at which they are observed. The spiral galaxies NGC 4302 (left) and NGC 4298...

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Details

Last Updated
Mar 12, 2025
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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