Hubble captures stunning image of a galaxy that once hosted titanic supernova

In this new image clicked by the Hubble telescope, the spiral arms of NGC 3318 are lazily draped, resembling a ship's sails billowing in a gentle breeze, the European Space Agency said.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of NGC 3318, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Vela. Located roughly 115 light-years away from Earth, the galaxy once hosted a spectacularly violent astronomical phenomenon.

In this new image clicked by the Hubble telescope, the spiral arms of NGC 3318 are lazily draped, resembling a ship's sails billowing in a gentle breeze, the European Space Agency said.

According to ESA, Vela was originally part of Argo Navis, a far larger constellation named after the fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology, but this unwieldy constellation proved to be impractically large. Argo Navis was split into three separate parts - Carnina, Puppis, and Vela - each named after part of the Argo.

The spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 3318 are lazily draped across this Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. 🔗 https://t.co/8mE4mXQ6QLCredit: @ESA / @Hubble_Space / @NASA , @ESO , R. J. FoleyAcknowledgement: R. Colombari pic.twitter.com/ksXxgiIPX7

— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) January 17, 2022

Despite its placid appearance, the galaxy has played host to a titanic supernova first detected by an amateur astronomer in 2000. Thanks to NGC 3318's distance from Earth, the original supernova must have taken place in or around 1885. Coincidentally, this was the year in which the only supernova ever to be detected in our neighbouring galaxy Andromeda was witnessed by 19th-century astronomers, the agency said.

Launched and deployed by the space shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble is a project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency and U.S. space agency NASA. The observatory recently completed one billion seconds of operation in space.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made over 1.5 million observations and more than 19,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published on its discoveries.