The Galaxy NGC 2336 – a forbidden spiral galaxy that spans 200,000 light-years across it – is captured here by NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, V. Antoniou, Acknowledgments: Judy Schmidt
NGC 2336 is the quintessential galaxy – big, beautiful and blue – and is captured here by the NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The forbidden spiral galaxy stretches 200,000 light-years across and is located about 100 million light-years away in the northern constellation Camelopardalis (The Giraffe).
Her arms are twisted with young stars, visible in their bright blue light. In contrast, older stars are controlled by the central part of the constellation.
NGC 2336 was discovered in 1876 by the German astronaut Wilhelm Tempel, using a 28-centimeter telescope. This Hubble image is far superior to what Tempel would look like – the main Hubble mirror is 2.4 meters across, almost ten times the size of the Tempel telescope used. In 1987, NGC 2336 discovered Type-Ia supernova, the only supernova seen in the galaxy since it was discovered 111 years earlier.