Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2025 June 13 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Rubin's Galaxy Image Credit: [3]NASA, [4]ESA, B. Holwerda (University of Louisville) Explanation: [5]In this Hubble Space Telescope image the bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus beyond is [6]UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way. [7]Part of an investigation to understand how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of [8]An Interesting Voyage and American astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies. Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence of [9]dark matter in our universe. A [10]new U.S. coin has been issured to honor Vera Rubin, while the [11]Vera C. Rubin Observatory is scheduled to unveil images from its first look at the [12]cosmos on June 23. Tomorrow's picture: criss-crossing __________________________________________________________________ [13]< | [14]Archive | [15]Submissions | [16]Index | [17]Search | [18]Calendar | [19]RSS | [20]Education | [21]About APOD | [22]Discuss | [23]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [24]Robert Nemiroff ([25]MTU) & [26]Jerry Bonnell ([27]UMCP) NASA Official: Amber Straughn [28]Specific rights apply. [29]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [30]ASD at [31]NASA / [32]GSFC, [33]NASA Science Activation & [34]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2506/RubinsGalaxy_hst2000.jpg 3. https://www.nasa.gov/ 4. https://www.spacetelescope.org/ 5. https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2020/01/4615-Image 6. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980ApJ...238..471R/abstract 7. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017hst..prop15107H/abstract 8. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-astro-081710-102545 9. https://www.space.com/vera-rubin.html 10. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/new-u-s-coin-honors-astronomer-vera-rubin/ 11. https://rubinobservatory.org/about 12. https://rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-first-look 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250612.html 14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 17. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 22. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=250613 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250614.html 24. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 25. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 26. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 27. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 28. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 29. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 30. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 31. https://www.nasa.gov/ 32. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 33. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 34. http://www.mtu.edu/