Cosmic furnace

This glowing galactic jewel, NGC 1385, is around 70,000 light years in diameter and is located approximately 68 million light years away from Earth within the constellation of Fornax. Unlike numerous other constellations in our skies, Fornax is not named after an animal, an ancient god or hero of legend – it is the Latin word for furnace.

NGC 1385 was discovered on 17 November 1784 by astronomer William Herschel and belongs to a group which contains over 30 galaxies. This impressive image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3.