NASA Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Our Milky Way's Twin Galaxy

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has done it yet again. The telescope has captured a breathtaking image of the NGC 7773 galaxy which is located 357 million light years away from our planet in the Pegasus constellation.

The galaxy is similar to our Milky Way, as it is also a barred spiral galaxy. A bar of bright light in the center of the galaxy is visible. It is basically a structure of gas and dust where star formation occurs.

Scientists have a notion that bars are developed later in the life cycle of galaxies when dust, gas and other material come together at the center of the galaxy. Since NGC 7773 is similar to our galaxy, we can use the findings to understand our galaxy.

Hubble used its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFCS3) which was installed on the telescope in 2009 and has produced some stunning images in the past. The instrument is responsible for over 240,000 observations, making it the most used tools on the space telescope.

Last month, Hubble also captured new star formation from a collision of two galaxies. Both galaxies surpassed each other millions of years ago and are now 24,000 light-years apart. The gravitational pull among the two created ripples of higher-density gas and dust with both galaxies. This process also triggered the formation of new stars.

Previously, NASA released an X-ray image showing the entire night sky over a span of 22-months, showing a celestial fireworks display. The image was chronicled using the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER).

NASA scientists also used the Spitzer space telescope to peer back to the early days of the universe. The data helped them understand the space from 13 billion years in the past.

"We did not expect that Spitzer, with a mirror no larger than a Hula-Hoop, would be capable of seeing galaxies so close to the dawn of time," said Michael Werner, a project scientist with Spitzer.

NASA space telescopes have always been the strong pillars for the space agency's research and gather data to understand our universe better. These telescope have ultra-high magnifying power and can capture galaxies millions of light years away from the Earth.