The irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486 appears against a background of faint, distant galaxies in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image.
The galaxy’s faint disk is dotted with pink wisps of star formation, which stand out against the diffuse glow of the galaxy’s bright core, NASA reports.
Although this particular galaxy has indistinct, meandering spiral arms, it lies close to the much larger Pinwheel Galaxy, which is one of the best-known examples of a “grand design” spiral galaxy with prominent, well-defined spiral arms.
In 2006, Hubble captured an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy that was, at the time, the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.
NGC 5486 is located 110 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ursa Major. This observation comes from a selection of Hubble images exploring remnants left behind by Type II supernovae.
When massive stars reach the end of their lives, they expel enormous amounts of gas and dust before ending their lives in titanic supernova explosions.
NGC 5486 hosted a supernova in 2004, and astronomers used the sharp vision of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to explore the aftermath in hopes of learning more about these explosive events.