Our Milky Way is part of a local group of over 20 galaxies, but NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's vision takes us far beyond our cosmic neighbourhood.
Galaxies are massive cosmic neighbourhoods made up of stars, dust, and gas. They range from dwarf galaxies with 100 million stars to giants with over 1 trillion stars.
Spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, have winding arms filled with gas, dust, and bright young stars. They actively form stars and make up a large portion of the galaxies in our nearby universe.
Barred spirals have a central bar of stars, with spiral arms that start at the ends of the bar. The Milky Way is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy.
Elliptical galaxies are the biggest and most common galaxies, formed through collisions and mergers. They contain older stars, less gas, and dust, and form fewer new stars.
Irregular galaxies lack a defined shape and are abundant in the early universe. They evolve into spirals and ellipticals as they merge with other galaxies.
Some galaxies appear to be in-between phases of evolution, including those that are colliding or interacting with each other, pulled together by gravity.
Hubble's deep field images have revealed over 10,000 galaxies in a small patch of sky, helping scientists understand the evolution and formation of galaxies.
Hubble has discovered that most galaxies contain supermassive black holes and has mapped dark matter that shapes the universe's structure.