A galactic maelstrom: This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy just over 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is of about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. It was first discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and added to Charles Messier’s famous catalogue of astronomical objects just four days later. The galaxy resembles a giant maelstrom of glowing gas, rippled with dark dust that swirls inwards towards the nucleus. Messier 96 is a very asymmetric galaxy; its dust and gas is unevenly spread throughout its weak spiral arms, and its core is not exactly at the galactic centre. Its arms are also asymmetrical, thought to have been influenced by the gravitational pull of other galaxies within the same group as Messier 96. This group, named the M96 Group, also includes the bright galaxies Messier 105 and Messier 95, as well as a number of smaller and fainter galaxies. It is the nearest group containing both bright spirals and a bright elliptical galaxy (Messier 105).

Name: Messier 96, NGC 3368
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Leo
Distance: 35 million light years
Release date: 31 August 2015, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and the LEGUS Team Acknowledgement: R. Gendler

A galactic sunflower: The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the centre of a sunflower. So the nickname for this cosmic object — the Sunflower Galaxy — is no coincidence. Discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1779, the galaxy later made it as the 63rd entry into fellow French astronomer Charles Messier’s famous catalogue, published in 1781. The two astronomers spotted the Sunflower Galaxy’s glow in the small, northern constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). We now know this galaxy is about 27 million light-years away and belongs to the M51 Group — a group of galaxies, named after its brightest member, Messier 51, another spiral-shaped galaxy dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. Galactic arms, sunflowers and whirlpools are only a few examples of nature’s apparent preference for spirals. For galaxies like Messier 63 the winding arms shine bright because of the presence of recently formed, blue–white giant stars, readily seen in this Hubble image.

Name: Messier 63
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Distance: 35 million light years
Release date: 7 September 2015, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Evolution in slow motion: It is known today that merging galaxies play a large role in the evolution of galaxies and the formation of elliptical galaxies in particular. However there are only a few merging systems close enough to be observed in depth. The pair of interacting galaxies picture seen here — known as NGC 3921 — is one of these systems. NGC 3921 — found in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear) — is an interacting pair of disc galaxies in the late stages of its merger. Observations show that both of the galaxies involved were about the same mass and collided about 700 million years ago. You can see clearly in this image the disturbed morphology, tails and loops characteristic of a post-merger. The clash of galaxies caused a rush of star formation and previous Hubble observations showed over 1000 bright, young star clusters bursting to life at the heart of the galaxy pair.

Name: NGC 3921
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting
Category: GalaxiesStars
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 270 million light years
Release date: 14 September 2015, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.com)

Hubble shears a "woolly" galaxy: This new image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3521 from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is not out of focus. Instead, the galaxy itself has a soft, woolly appearance as it a member of a class of galaxies known as flocculent spirals. Like other flocculent galaxies, NGC 3521 lacks the clearly defined, arcing structure to its spiral arms that shows up in galaxies such as Messier 101, which are called grand design spirals. In flocculent spirals, fluffy patches of stars and dust show up here and there throughout their discs. Sometimes the tufts of stars are arranged in a generally spiralling form, as with NGC 3521, but illuminated star-filled regions can also appear as short or discontinuous spiral arms. About 30 percent of galaxies share NGC 3521's patchiness, while approximately 10 percent have their star-forming regions wound into grand design spirals. NGC 3521 is located almost 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). The British astronomer William Herschel discovered the object in 1784. Through backyard telescopes, NGC 3521 can have a glowing, rounded appearance, giving rise to its nickname, the Bubble Galaxy.

Name: NGC 3521
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Leo
Distance: 40 million light years
Release date: 21 September 2015, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast) Acknowledgement: Robert Gendler

A spiral galaxy’s brights and darks: Ribbons of dust festoon the galaxy NGC 613 in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 613 is classified as a barred spiral galaxy for the bar-shaped band of stars and dust crossing its intensely glowing centre. About two thirds of spiral galaxies show a characteristic bar shape like NGC 613 — our own galaxy appears to have one of these bars through its midline as well. NGC 613 lies 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor (The Sculptor).   It was first noted by the English astronomer William Herschel in 1798 and later by John Louis Emil Dreyer, a Danish–Irish astronomer, who recorded the object in his 1888 New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars — hence the letters "NGC". NGC 613's core looks bright and uniformly white in this image as a result of the combined light shining from the high concentration of stars packed into the core, but lurking at the centre of this brilliance lies a dark secret. As with nearly all spiral galaxies, a monstrous black hole resides at the heart of NGC 613. Its mass is estimated at about ten times that of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole and it is consuming stars, gas and dust. As this matter descends into the black hole's maw it radiates away energy and spews out radio waves. However, when looking at the the galaxy in the optical and infrared wavelengths used to take this image, there is no trace of the dark heart. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Robert Gendler.

Name: NGC 613
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Sculptor
Distance: 65 million light years
Release date: 28 September 2015, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast) Acknowledgement: Robert Gendler