NGC 2336 was discovered over a century ago, but the large, blue spiral galaxy has never looked better thanks to a striking image obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope.
German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel discovered NGC 2336 in 1876, which he did with a simple 11-inch (0.28 meter) telescope. He could hardly have imagined a picture like this, taken by Hubble’s eight-foot main mirror, according to to a press release from NASA.
NGC 2336 spans about 100 million light years away and located in the northern constellation Camelopardalis (which represents a giraffe). With eight prominent spiral arms, NGC 2336 spans about 200 light years across. In contrast, the Milky Way – another spiral galaxy – is about half the size, measuring 105,000 light years in diameter.
The gigantic galaxy is filled with young stars, which appear in blue, while older stars, many of which are located in the center, shine red.
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Interestingly, NGC 2336 produced a visible supernova, which astronomers discovered on August 16, 1987. It was later determined to be a type 1a supernova, in which the exploding member of a binary pair is a white dwarf.