Hubble's sprawling close-up of a distant galaxy looks like a sparkly spider web
We live in one of these, you know.
Our own Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, much like the one featured in this newly shared image captured by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. What you're seeing is NGC 691, a spiral galaxy that's roughly 120 million light-years away.
This beautiful image is more than just a snapshot, though. Hubble doesn't operate all on its own. An image like this pulls together the details the space telescope is able to discern across multiple wavelengths. Those filtered images are then collected and handed off to a scientifically minded art team that decides which colors best represent each filter.
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The resulting image we see above, then, is a composite. A layered assemblage of colored and filtered looks at NGC 691, overlaid all together to show us the dazzling spectacle of the galaxy's full appearance, as our science understands it.
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
