NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a galaxy named NGC 2188. Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, R. Tully
The blue and orange stars in the Milky Way galaxy named NGC 2188 NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Although NGC 2188 at first glance consists of only a narrow band of stars, it has been classified by astronomers as a block-spiral galaxy. It looks like this from our point of view on Earth because the center of the galaxy and the spiral arm are tilted away from us, which makes us see the very narrow outer edge of the galaxy’s disk. Astronomers compare this phenomenon to rotating a dinner plate in your hand so that you can only see its outer edge. The true shape of the galaxy was identified by studying the distribution of stars in the inner central bead and outer disk and by observing the colors of the stars.
NGC 2188 estimates that it is half our size Milk Ganga, Across is 20,000 light-years, and is located in the northern hemisphere constellation of Columba (The Dove). Named after Noah’s dove in the late 1500’s in Bible stories, the small constellation includes many obscure yet beautiful stars and astronomical objects.
