A special spiral galaxy for over 200 000 Facebook fans: This Hubble Picture of the Week is dedicated to the over 200 000 Facebook fans of ESA/Hubble, who share our passion for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the discoveries it brings. We thank you for staying in touch with us! The image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows part of NGC 3621, an unusual spiral galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Water Snake). The small, bright nucleus on the right of the image does not have the significant bulge of older stars that is common in spiral galaxies, marking NGC 3621 as a "pure-disc" galaxy. Many luminous clumps of blue young stars are scattered along the loose spiral arms, which are partially obscured by the dark dust lanes snaking across the frame. This galaxy is very useful for astronomers; some of its brightest stars can be used to estimate extragalactic distances, allowing us to measure the vast scale of the Universe. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Claude Cornen. The Hubble Space Telescope is the astronomers' tele-lens; a wider view of this galaxy was obtained with ESO's Very Large Telescope (potw1148a), and a wide-angle image with the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) at ESO's La Silla Observatory (eso1104). Just as for normal landscape photography, different lenses – or telescopes, in this case! – are used depending on what the photographer wants to shoot.

Name: NGC 3621
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Hydra
Distance: 22 million light years
Release date: 14 October 2013, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASAAcknowledgement: Claude Cornen

Hubble snaps icy comet ISON: This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture shows C/2012 S1, better known as Comet ISON, a high-profile celestial visitor to the Solar System. Hubble has already snapped this comet twice this year (opo1314a, opo1331a), but for some time it was temporarily blocked from view by the Sun. It was spotted again in August 2013, and this new image shows the comet as it appeared in our skies in early October. ISON will be brightest in our skies in late November, just before and after it hurtles past the Sun. As it gets brighter, it may even become visible as a naked eye object, before it fades throughout December — the month of its closest approach to Earth. Depending on its fate as it passes close to the Sun, it could become spectacular or, on the contrary, it could completely disintegrate. Many observatories, as well as several ESA and NASA missions, aim to observe this icy visitor over the coming months. In this Hubble image, taken on 9 October 2013, the comet's solid nucleus is unresolved because it is so small. If it had broken apart — a possibility as the Sun slowly warms it up during its approach — Hubble would have likely seen evidence for multiple fragments instead.

Name: C/2012 S1, Comet ISON
Type: Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Comet
Category: Solar System
Release date: 21 October 2013, 10:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

New shot of Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighbour: Shining brightly in this Hubble image is our closest stellar neighbour: Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri lies in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), just over four light-years from Earth. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye. Its average luminosity is very low, and it is quite small compared to other stars, at only about an eighth of the mass of the Sun. However, on occasion, its brightness increases. Proxima is what is known as a “flare star”, meaning that convection processes within the star’s body make it prone to random and dramatic changes in brightness. The convection processes not only trigger brilliant bursts of starlight but, combined with other factors, mean that Proxima Centauri is in for a very long life. Astronomers predict that this star will remain middle-aged — or a “main sequence” star in astronomical terms — for another four trillion years, some 300 times the age of the current Universe. These observations were taken using Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Proxima Centauri is actually part of a triple star system — its two companions, Alpha Centauri A and B, lie out of frame. Although by cosmic standards it is a close neighbour, Proxima Centauri remains a point-like object even using Hubble’s eagle-eyed vision, hinting at the vast scale of the Universe around us.

Name: Proxima Centauri, V* V645 Cen
Type: Milky Way : Star : Type : Variable : Flare Star
Category: Stars
Constellation: Centaurus
Distance: 4 light years
Release date: 28 October 2013, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Stellar explosions in NGC 6984: Supernovae are intensely bright objects. They are formed when a star reaches the end of its life with a dramatic explosion, expelling most of its material out into space. The subject of this new Hubble image, spiral galaxy NGC 6984, played host to one of these explosions back in 2012, known as SN 2012im. Now, another star has exploded, forming supernova SN 2013ek — visible in this image as the prominent, star-like bright object just slightly above and to the right of the galaxy's centre. SN 2012im is known as a Type Ic supernova, while the more recent SN 2013ek is a Type Ib. Both of these types are caused by the core collapse of massive stars that have shed — or lost — their outer layers of hydrogen. Type Ic supernovae are thought to have lost more of their outer envelope than Type Ib, including a layer of helium. The observations that make up this new image were taken on 19 August 2013, and aimed to pinpoint the location of this new explosion more precisely. It is so close to where SN 2012im was spotted that the two events are thought to be linked; the chance of two completely independent supernovae so close together and of the same class exploding within one year of one another is a very unlikely event. It was initially suggested that SN 2013ek may in fact be SN 2012im flaring up again, but further observations support the idea that they are separate supernovae — although they may be closely related in some as-yet-unknown way.

Name: NGC 6984, PSN J20575390-515, PSN J20575392-5152248
Type: Local Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : SupernovaLocal Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: GalaxiesStars
Constellation: Indus
Distance: 180 million light years
Release date: 4 November 2013, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA