✦ Today's cosmos

A Distant Cluster of Galaxies

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day · December 7, 1997
A Distant Cluster of Galaxies
Tap the image for full resolution ↗
via NASA APOD
◆ What you're looking at
In this 1994 Hubble Space Telescope photograph, every bright object is a galaxy. Oddly - most of them are spiral galaxies. This rich cluster of galaxies, named CL 0939+4713, is almost half way across the visible universe. Photos like this indicate that clusters in the past contained a higher fraction of spirals than do nearby clusters which are usually dominated by elliptical galaxies.