Here you have it with a glorious star captured in front of it. This spectacular Hubble image of NGC 4013 shows this pinwheel galaxy to be very similar to our own Milky Way though it lies some 55 million light-years from Earth. To give you an idea just how huge this galaxy is, even at 55 million light-years away, Hubble still can't capture more than half the image in the frame, but the detail is extraordinary. Most of the clouds lie in the plane of the galaxy, forming the dark band, about 500 light-years thick , that appears to cut the galaxy in two from upper right to lower left. These dark cloudy area are where scientist think stars form.
Young stars are visible as clusters of blue stars.
The extremely bright star near the upper left corner is a foreground star belonging to our Milky Way Galaxy. After galaxies formed in the early Universe, these groups of galaxies may have been the next systems to evolve. It is thought that later on they combine with others to form even bigger galaxy clusters. Most galaxies present today are still in groups or poor clusters. Instead it radiates strong X-rays.