04 August 2013
The bizarre whirl-like galaxy NGC 524
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
NASA recently published an image of an amazing galaxy, acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image shows a whirl-like galaxy, known technically as NGC 524. The galaxy contains twirling dark clouds of gas and cosmic dust, which render the appearance of a giant whirl.
NGC 524 is located some 90 million light years away from Earth. It belongs to a type of galaxies, known as lenticular galaxies, which are shaped like a lens. These wonderful galaxies consist of large numbers of reddish cool old stars, and contain little amounts of remaining gas and dust, the raw material for forming stars.
References
NASA
www.nasa.gov/
Hubble Site
http://hubblesite.org/