Like a circle in a spiral

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 24 FEBRUARY 2020

This exquisite spiral galaxy is NGC 691, 120 million lightyears away in the constellation of Aries. Discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1786, it was one of thousands of distant objects he was the first to catalogue. Little could he have imagined the spectacular views of far distant stars, planets and galaxies that would one day be possible thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope.