Photo of the day: on the outskirts of a faint galaxy in the constellation Dove
Today, on the last day of summer, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a beautiful photograph of the galaxy designated NGC 2188.
Photo of the day1
The image was published on the Hubble Space Telescope website under the heading “Image of the Week”. The named object was discovered back in 1836 by the English astronomer John Herschel.
NGC 2188 is located in the constellation Dove and is classified as a barred spiral galaxy. However, in the presented photograph, the structure typical for such objects is not visible. This is due to the fact that “Hubble” captured the galaxy from the edge, that is, we observe its outskirts.
NGC 2188 is noted to be a faint galaxy-spanning approximately 50,000 light-years. By comparison, our Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light-years across. In the image, NGC 2188 looks like a strip of stars of different types.
Note that in the spring of this year, Hubble celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. The space observatory was launched on April 24, 1990, aboard the STS-31 Discovery shuttle.
