A webless spider in space: Check out this new image from Hubble telescope

This latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows UGC 5829 - an irregular galaxy, consisting of a large central body of dull-coloured stars, with distorted arms around it. Located about 30 million light-years away, UGC 5829 is also known as the Spider Galaxy. Its distorted arms are spotted with brightly glowing pink areas where new stars form, resembling an arachnid's clawed legs. 

Names can often intertwine and confuse, as evidenced by the existence of another galaxy with a remarkably similar nickname - the Spiderweb Galaxy. Despite the similarity in names, these two galaxies are vastly different, not only in their physical properties but also in their distance from Earth, with the Spiderweb Galaxy residing about 300 times further away.

The Spider Galaxy is cataloged under several designations across various astronomical databases. Known as UGC 5829 in the Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies, LEDA 31923 in the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database, MCG+06-24-006 in the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies, and SDSS J104242.78+342657.3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Catalogue, each serving as a testament to the galaxy's presence in the scientific community's quest for knowledge.

These names might be dull, but they are harder to confuse than names like ‘Spider’ and ‘Spiderweb’!Read more: https://t.co/BBothWG0p8📷 @ESA / @Hubble_Space , @NASA , R. Tully, M. Messa 3/3

— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) March 18, 2024