APOD: 2026 August 30 – M74: A Grand Design Spiral

NASA Science has highlighted a stunning composite image of M74, a spiral galaxy located thirty-two million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. Created from Hubble Space Telescope archives, the image reveals a face-on view of the galaxy's graceful spiral arms, which are defined by dark dust lanes and bright blue star clusters. The composite also captures a reddish glow from hydrogen atoms, marking the regions where new stars are forming across a span of thirty thousand light-years.

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