The spiral galaxy NGC 3370 is home to some of the most useful objects in astronomy: Cepheid variable stars and Type Ia supernovae. The brightness of a Cepheid variable star can be calculated from how quickly it pulsates, while Type Ia supernovae have a consistent brightness. Measuring how bright they appear from Earth, then, makes it possible to calculate how far away they are 📏 and how far away their host galaxies are! Read more here: https://ow.ly/YjXb50XgUvw 📷 ESA - European Space Agency /

NGC 2090 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Columba. It has been described as a flocculent spiral 🌌 a type of spiral galaxy with a patchy disc and poorly defined arms. The galaxy is full of activity, with clusters of star formation spread across its disc. Examining star formation was the motivation for these Hubble observations, taken in October of this year. Read more here: https://ow.ly/PjrI50UeEMP 📷 ESA - European Space Agency / Hubble Space Telescope & NASA - National Aeronaut

👉The Milky Way isn’t just a pretty spray of stars across the night sky — it’s a massive, living system that has been changing and growing for over 13 billion years. Our galaxy has a barred spiral shape, with a glowing central bulge, a bar of stars running through its middle, and wide spiral arms that curve outward. These arms are busy places where new stars are constantly forming. At the very center sits a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. It has millions of times the mass of our S