Embargoed Until: 1:00 a.m. (EST) March 1, 2001

NGC 4013: A Galaxy on the Edge

The Hubble telescope has snapped this remarkable view of a perfectly "edge-on" galaxy, NGC 4013. This new Hubble picture reveals with exquisite detail huge clouds of dust and gas extending along, as well as far above, the galaxy's main disk. NGC 4013 is a spiral galaxy, similar to our Milky Way, lying some 55 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. Viewed face-on, it would look like a nearly circular pinwheel, but NGC 4013 happens to be seen edge-on from our vantage point. Even at 55 million light-years, the galaxy is larger than Hubble's field of view, and the image shows only a little more than half of the object, albeit with unprecedented detail.

Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: J.C. Howk (Johns Hopkins University) and B.D. Savage (University of Wisconsin-Madison)