14 DAY TRIAL // Astronomers operating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have recently released this amazing new image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4643, which lies around 70 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Coma Berenices.
The object is seen directly edge-on, revealing a slightly distorted structure. Experts say that the tidal influences are exerted by NGC 4633, a neighboring spiral galaxy. The latter is located just to the upper right of this field of view.
In order to produce this exquisite view of NGC 4643, Hubble pieced together data from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) instruments.
The dark filaments seen scattered throughout this image are actually large clouds of dust and hydrogen gas, which obscure the light emanating from the stars in the background. These areas also produce new stars at a high rate.