Photo of spiral galaxy 65 million light-years away

The telescope in Chile captures the image of galaxy NGC 3981 glowing with stars scattered around.

Telescope captures NGC 3981 galaxy 65 million light-years from Earth.(Photo: ESO).

The European Astronomical Research Organization in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) published a photo of spiral galaxy NGC 3981 , reported Futurism. Photograph by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, recorded in May this year.

The image shows the spiral arms of NGC 3981 and the bright center, where the supermassive black hole is located. Some stars in the Milky Way are scattered around the galaxy. In particular, there is an asteroid in the picture. The asteroid's path is shown in the form of multicolored streaks above, near the center of the image.

New images are part of ESO's Cosmic Gems program . The goal of the program is to create beautiful and high quality images for ESO to use for educational purposes and to get closer to the public.

To ensure this activity does not affect other studies, ESO chooses when the telescope does not serve scientific research, such as when it is cloudy or when it is not being used. Experts also store all data of Cosmic Gems because they may be useful for science.