Day 3 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar
ESA / Hubble & NASA, L. Kelsey
Day 3 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Hubble Space Telescope brings us this nearly edge-on view of the lenticular galaxy NGC 4753. Lenticular galaxies have an elliptical shape and ill-defined spiral arms. NGC 4753 sits about 60 million light-years from Earth, and is believed to have merged with a nearby dwarf galaxy about 1.3 billion years ago, creating the distinctive wavy dust lanes around its nucleus.
See the full advent calendar here, as a new image will be revealed each day until December 25.