NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures stunning image of spiral galaxy

Franklin Institute astronomer Derrick Pitts says the telescope has likely been put to sleep as a precaution to protect the spacecraft from falling out of orbit or losing data.

New imagery has been released from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which captured a photo of a spiral galaxy more than 76 million light-years away from Earth.

The galaxy known to observers as NGC 2566 is located in the constellation Puppis and features stars in the formation of spiral arms and a disk, giving it the appearance of a cosmic eye gazing toward Earth.

NASA says the imagery helps it to study star clusters and active star-forming regions far away from Earth.

“The Hubble data are especially valuable for studying stars that are just a few million years old; these stars are bright at the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to which Hubble is sensitive,” the space agency stated. “Using these data, researchers can measure the ages of NGC 2566’s stars, which helps piece together the timeline of the galaxy’s star formation and the exchange of gas between star-forming clouds and the stars themselves.”

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Hubble Space Telescope image of spiral galaxy NGC 2566.

(NASA)

When astronomers view an object millions of light-years away, the image actually left the celestial feature millions of years ago because of the speed light travels.

This means the image of NGC 2566 represents how the galaxy looked 76 million years ago and not how it appears in the present day.

NASA says light travels at 11.16 million miles per minute, which equates to nearly 6 trillion miles in just one light-year.

Earth is thought to be around 320 light-years away from the North Star, 26,000 light-years away from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and 13.4 billion light-years away from the oldest galaxy ever discovered.

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It’s believed the Hubble has captured images of hundreds of thousands of galaxies since its inception in 1990 – all while orbiting at some 320 miles above Earth’s surface. 

Missions performed by astronauts and robots have extended the telescope’s operations well beyond its scheduled lifespan.

In late 2021, it was joined by the much more powerful James Webb Telescope and is expected to remain in use until the 2030s.