NGC 2336 was discovered more than a century ago, but the great blue spiral galaxy never looked better, thanks to a striking image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.
German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel discovered NGC 2336 in 1876, which he did with a humble 11-inch (0.28-meter) telescope. I could hardly have imagined a photo like this, taken by Hubble’s main mirror, 7.9 feet (2.4 meters), seconds to a NASA press release.
NGC 2336 is approximately 100 million light-years away away and located in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis (representing a giraffe). With its eight prominent spiral arms, NGC 2336 measures about 200 light-years Through. In contrast, the Milky Way (another spiral galaxy) is about half that size, measuring 105,000 light-years. of diameter.
The giant galaxy is full of young stars, which appear in blue, while the older stars, many located toward the center, glow red.
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Interestingly, NGC 2336 produced a visible supernova, which astronomers detected 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 dwarf. White.