Galaxy NGC 646 sparkles like a cosmic holiday garland in this new image from the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope.
This large barred spiral galaxy is located in the constellation Hydrus and was discovered in 1834 by the British astronomer John Herschel (the son of William Herschel). The galaxy is moving away from us at about 8145 km per second. It’s located roughly 392 million light-years from Earth, which means its light takes hundreds of millions of years to reach us.
Although this sounds very far, NGC 646 is actually quite close compared to the billions of galaxies that Euclid will observe during its six-year mission.
By the end of 2026, ESA and the Euclid Consortium will release the first year of observations, covering about 1900 square degrees of the sky (approximately 14% of the total survey area). These images will reveal hundreds of thousands of galaxies in exquisite detail, offering new insights into how galaxies form and evolve – and why barred galaxies become more common as the Universe ages.
In this image, NGC 646 appears close to a smaller galaxy to the left, called PGC 6014. They look like neighbours, but they’re actually about 45 million light-years apart, with PGC 6014 at a distance of 347 million light-years from us. So, any gravitational interaction between them, if it exists, would be very weak and short-lived.
[Image description: An image of space made by the Euclid telescope shows a bright barred spiral galaxy with two sweeping arms glowing in shades of blue and white against a deep black background dotted with stars. Its core is luminous. Its spiral arms curve gracefully outward to the left and down to the right, resembling a cosmic garland draped across the scene. A smaller, faint and round galaxy appears to the left of the barred spiral galaxy.]