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HAPPENING NOW: NASA’s Psyche Mission is about to perform one of the most important maneuvers of its multi-year journey through deep space: a close flyby of Mars that will use the Red Planet’s gravity to reshape the spacecraft’s path toward its final destination — the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. Read more: https://spaceinfo.club/nasas-psyche-mission-uses-mars-for-a-precision-gravity-assist-on-its-journey-to-a-metal-world/

Hubble spies an active spiral.

IC 486 glows against the darkness of space in this stunning new Hubble image. Located about 380 million light-years away on the edge of the constellation Gemini, this galaxy is classified as a barred spiral — meaning its spiral arms emerge from a bright, elongated bar at the center.

Its structure appears smooth and elegant, with spiral arms wrapping around the core in an almost ring-like pattern. But beneath that beauty lies a dynamic environment shaped by stars, gas, and dust.

Hubble reveals subtle color differences across the galaxy. The bright central region is dominated by older stars, while faint bluish areas in the outer disk mark regions where newer stars are forming. Thin lanes of dust weave through the galaxy, tracing dense clouds of gas that may become future stellar nurseries.

Galaxies like IC 486 help astronomers understand how stars form and how spiral galaxies evolve over billions of years.

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Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. J. Koss, A. J. Barth