Post #12

Get my good side. If you’re a galaxy, that tends to be all sides. Take this edge-on view captured by NAS AHubble for example. This spiral galaxy’s tightly wound spiral arms steal the show, revealing bands of stars and dark clouds of dust. It’s located 230 million light-years away in the constellation Aquila and lies close to the plane of the Milky Way. So close that foreground stars from our own galaxy have crept into the image – the two prominent stars in front of this galaxy are interlopers from within the Milky Way. The spikes surrounding these stars are imaging artifacts, called diffraction spikes. They are the result of starlight interacting with the structure that supports Hubble’s secondary mirror.