The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Hubble spies Pinwheel galaxy in pin-sharp detail

Galactic gallery released

Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime

Pinwheel galaxy: European Space Agency & NASA

Images released today from the Hubble Space Telescope show the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy in unprecedented detail. Regions where stars are born are clearly visible in the set.

The spectacular super-high definition main portrait (pictured right) is actually a composite of 51 individual exposures.

The Pinwheel sits face-on 25m light years away in the constellation Ursa Major, and contains at least a trillion stars, and 100 billion which are probably similar to our sun in heat and lifespan. At 170,000 light-years across, the spiral is about twice the diameter of the Milky Way.

The full set of images can be found here. ®

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

More from The Register

New material enables 1,000-meter super-skyscrapers
Before you read on, see if you can guess how the new stuff will be used
 breaking news
You've seen the Large Hadron Collider. Now comes the HUGE Hadron Collider
International Linear Collider ready to rock and roll
 breaking news
Latest NASA ASTRONAUT class is HALF FEMALE
Newbie 'nauts include lady Marine fighter pilot, male doctor
Boffins find evidence Atlantic Ocean has started closing
'Embryonic subduction zone' that flattened Lisbon headed for Blighty
Google launches broadband balloons, radio astronomy frets
A careless Loon could blind the square kilometre array
Headbangers have a gas, gas, gas in mosh pits
Boffins say heavy metal crowds behave like The Vapours
Hubble spies unlikely planet being born in hostile neighborhood
Hoovering a cloud of sand 7.5 billion miles from a tiny star
 breaking news
Jaguar to open new car-making factory in Blighty (virtually)
Britain still makes stuff, it's just not real any more...
 breaking news
Spin doctors brazenly fiddle with tiny bits in front of the neighbours
Quantum computer address bus just nanometres wide
 breaking news
China's second woman 'naut blasts off for coupling in HEAVEN
Wang and pals test the cosmic waters for Chinese space station