PIA10388: AM 0500-620—Spiral Arms and Bright Knots

Mission: Hubble Space Telescope Spacecraft: Hubble Space Telescope Instrument: Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 Product Size: 1669 samples x 1669 lines Produced By: Space Telescope Science Institute Full-Res TIFF: PIA10388.tif (8.37 MB) Full-Res JPEG: PIA10388.jpg (305.4 kB)

Original Caption Released with Image: Galaxies Gone Wild! Poster Version Unannotated Poster Version Hubble Interacting Galaxies Poster AM 0500-620 consists of a highly symmetric spiral galaxy seen nearly face-on and partially backlit by a background galaxy. The foreground spiral galaxy has a number of dust lanes between its arms. The background galaxy was earlier classified as an elliptical galaxy, but Hubble has now revealed a galaxy with dusty spiral arms and bright knots of stars. AM0500-620 is 350 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Dorado, the Swordfish. This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on 24th April 2008. It was taken by the telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was designed and built by JPL. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa