This image is released as part of the Early Release Observations from ESA’s Euclid space mission. All data from these initial observations are made public on 23 May 2024 – including a handful of unprecedented new views of the nearby Universe, this being one.
This image is a higher resolution, close-up cutout from a larger frame featuring the spiral galaxy NGC 6744. This frame shows one of the galaxy’s disrupted spiral arms, a result of a recent interaction with the companion dwarf galaxy seen to the right. This interaction caused massive, hot stars to form, as marked by patches of blue.
[Image description: Hundreds of stars and galaxies are spread over this image against a dark sky. A stream of stars veiled by a thin fog-like substance curves from a cloud in the bottom to the upper right. At the end of this stream of stars sits a cloudy ellipse. A bright yellow star with eight diffraction spikes emerges from a cloud in the bottom of the image.]