Hubble Space Telescope provides astronomers with breathtaking images of the cosmos for deeper studies.
This time, it captured the NGC 3318 galaxy, which lies in the constellation Vela, located about 115 million light-years away from the Earth.
The image was shared by the European Space Agency (ESA) on its official Instagram handle. Stating that the spiral arms of the galaxy were lazily draped across in the image
ESA added that “Vela was originally part of a far larger constellation, known as Argo Navis after the fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology.”
Argo Navis was split into three separate parts called Carnina, Puppis, and Vela — each named after part of the Argo.
As befits a galaxy in a nautically inspired constellation, the outer edges of NGC 3318 almost resemble a ship's sails billowing in a gentle breeze.”
Within a few hours of being shared, the Instagram post was liked by over 7,000 people. Few days ago, NASA, too, had shared the same image on Instagram.