Hubble photo shows what a side view of the Milky Way might look like
We may never leave our Milky Way galaxy and see it from the outside, but the Hubble Space Telescope at least helps us imagine that view.
A newly shared Hubble image that NASA posted on Friday takes a look at NGC 3432. This not-too-distant celestial body (it's only 42 million light-years away!) is a spiral galaxy much like Earth's own Milky Way. But because of where we are and how it's situated, Hubble's photo amounts to a side view.
On the edge of a galaxy. ✨
Believe it or not, this luminous streak is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way. Because observatories like @NASAHubble have seen spiral galaxies at every kind of orientation, astronomers can tell when we see one from the side: https://t.co/D47pHMuu0c pic.twitter.com/HcWFvPESoM— NASA (@NASA) August 2, 2019 Read more...