NGC 2336 was discovered over a century ago, but the large, blue, spiral galaxy has never looked better, thanks to an attractive image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.
German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel discovered NGC 2336 in 1876, which he did with a humble 11-inch (0.28-meter) telescope. He could hardly have imagined a photograph of this kind, taken by Hubble’s 2.4-meter main mirror, right to a NASA press release.
NGC 2336 is about 100 million light years away far away and located in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis (depicting a giraffe). With its eight protruding spiral arms, the NGC 2336 measures approximately 200 light-years over. By contrast, the Milky Way – another spiral galaxy – is about half its size, measuring 105,000 light-years. in diameter.
The giant galaxy is full of young stars, which appear in blue, while the older stars, many located in the center, shine red.
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Interestingly, NGC 2336 produced a visible supernova, which astronomers detected on August 16, 1987. It was later determined to be a type 1a supernova, in which the exploding member of a binary pair is a white dwarf.