A photo of the galaxy 140 million light-years from Earth

NASA today released a stunning photo of galaxy NGC 5468 taken with the Hubble space telescope.

NGC 5468 , first discovered on March 5, 1785, is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation, about 140 million light-years from Earth. It faces our Milky Way galaxy so its spiral structure can be clearly seen through Hubble telescopes.

Photo of galaxy NGC 5468 taken by Hubble telescope.(Photo: NASA).

NGC 5468 has two main spiral arms that originate from the center of the galaxy, also known as a bulge , and then continue to branch into thinner strands. These spiral arms are the places where stars form, so they look brighter than the surrounding disk.

In the last two decades, as many as five supernovas, the intense explosion that marked the destruction of a giant star, was observed in galaxy NGC 5468. Meanwhile, there were only three super explosions. The supernova occurred in our Milky Way galaxy for the last 1,000 years.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and operates in orbit of the Earth at an altitude of about 610 km. It is designed to exist for at least 15 years in the universe but has been operating for nearly 30 years.