Hubble takes a spectacular photo of an irregular spiral galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a new image of the irregular galaxy NGC 5486, showing the galaxy's sinuous spiral arms. Located in the Ursa Major constellation, this star-forming galaxy is 110 million light years from Earth.

As Space.com informs, in addition to the galaxy's spiral arms, the photo also shows its bright core, and in the background you can also see several fainter and more distant galaxies. Stars are forming in the pink areas seen in the photo.

"The tenuous disk of the galaxy is threaded through with pink wisps of star formation, which stand out from the diffuse glow of the galaxy’s bright core,” NASA officials said in a statement.

The recent photo of NGC 5486 was taken as part of an initiative to explore debris left behind by Type II supernovas, which are violent stellar explosions that occur following the rapid collapse of a massive star. Such an event in NGC 5486 was recorded in 2004, and now astronomers are studying its consequences with the help of Hubble.

Irregular galaxies are those that have neither a spiral nor an elliptical structure, which has probably been destroyed by the gravitational pull of a larger nearby object. NGC 5486 is located in the vicinity of the much larger Pinwheel Galaxy, one of the best-known examples of a classical spiral galaxy.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (NGC 5457) is located about 21 million light years from Earth, making it one of the closest galaxies to Earth. It is about twice the size of the Milky Way, has well-defined spiral arms, and is estimated to contain more than a trillion stars.

Hubble photographed the Pinwheel Galaxy in 2006, which, at the time, was the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken by the space telescope, according to the NASA statement.