The image was taken in January 1998 and required an exposure time of 36 hours to detect objects down to 30th magnitude. The new region is in the constellation Tucana, near the south celestial pole. Hubble s sharp vision allows astronomers to sort galaxy shapes. The image is dominated by beautiful pinwheel-shaped disk galaxies, which are like our Milky Way. The picture also contains a variety of peculiar-shaped galaxies that are in collision with companion galaxies.
Elliptical galaxies appear as reddish blobs.
The colors in the pictures are a natural representation of the galaxies stellar populations. Blue corresponds to young hot stars. Red may indicate older stars, starlight scattered by dust, or very distant starlight that has been stretched to redder wavelengths by the universe s expansion. This will help astronomers understand the history of the universe because the galaxies represent the universe at different epochs, depending on their distances. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope used its full array of instruments to look nearly all the way across the universe.