Rubin’s Galaxy

This majestic spiral galaxy, nicknamed "Rubin's Galaxy" after astronomer Vera Rubin, may be the largest known in the local universe. The galaxy, UGC 2885, is 2.5 times wider than our Milky Way and contains 10 times as many stars. The galaxy looks like it has been sitting quietly over billions of years, possibly sipping hydrogen from the filamentary structure of intergalactic space. This fuels modest ongoing star birth at half the rate of our Milky Way. A number of foreground stars in our Milky Way can be seen in the image, identified by their x-shaped diffraction spikes. The brightest appears to sit on top of the galaxy's disk, though UGC 2885 is really 232 million light-years farther away.