Pinwheel
37. galaxy
This image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known
examples of “grand design spirals”, and its supergiant star-forming regions
in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed
photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.
Credit: European Space Agency & NASA
Ghostly
38. reflections in
the Pleiades
This image shows a dark interstellar cloud ravaged by the passage
of Merope, one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster.
Just as a torch beam bounces off the wall of a cave, the star is
reflecting light from the surface of pitch-black clouds of cold gas
laced with dust. As the nebula approaches Merope, the strong
starlight shining on the dust decelerates the dust particles. The
nebula is drifting through the cluster at a relative speed of roughly
11 kilometres per second.
The Hubble Space Telescope has caught the eerie, wispy tendrils
of a dark interstellar cloud being destroyed by the passage of one
of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster. Like a flashlight
beam shining off the wall of a cave, the s \