Galaxy NGC 2336 – a spiral galaxy that spans a whopping 200,000 light-years – is captured here by NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, V. Antoniou, Credit: Judy Schmidt
NGC 2336 is the most important galaxy – large, beautiful and blue – and is captured here by the NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The blocked spiral galaxy spans a whopping 200,000 light-years and is about 100 million light-years away in the northern constellation Camelopardalis (the giraffe).
Its spiral arms are glittering with young stars, visible in their bright blue light. In contrast, the redder central part of the galaxy is dominated by older stars.
NGC 2336 was discovered in 1876 by the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel using a 28-centimeter telescope. This Hubble statue is so much better than the view Temple would have had – Hubble’s main mirror is 2.4 meters wide, almost ten times the size of the telescope Temple used. In 1987, NGC 2336 experienced a Type Ia supernova, the only observed supernova in the galaxy since its discovery 111 years earlier.