Glowing distant stars become Hubble's latest subject! - See pic

Image courtesy: ESA/Hubble/NASA

New Delhi: NASA's Hubble space telescope has caught numerous discoveries with its eye, which have turned out to be massive revelations and have helped scientists and astronomers alike in their efforts to better understand the universe.

The world of space is like a vast sea, a fact that Hubble respects and beams back beautiful images that are absolute stunners and give us an insight into the structure of the universe and its evolution.

Now, hidden amidst the millions of galaxies that the space harbours, Hubble has managed to capture the glow of distant stars within NGC 5264, a dwarf galaxy located just over 15 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Serpent).

As per NASA, dwarf galaxies like NGC 5264 typically possess around a billion stars – just 1 percent of the number of stars found within the Milky Way. They are usually found orbiting other larger galaxies such as our own, and are thought to form from the material left over from the messy formation of their larger cosmic relatives.

NGC 5264 clearly possesses an irregular shape – unlike the more common spiral or elliptical galaxies – with knots of blue star formation. Astronomers believe that this is due to the gravitational interactions between NGC 5264 and other galaxies nearby. These past flirtations sparked the formation of new generations of stars, which now glow in bright shades of blue.