Mid-infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shown in white, gray, and red, are combined here with X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, highlighted in blue. Together, these different wavelengths reveal a detailed and layered view of a pair of colliding spiral galaxies, captured in an image released on Dec. 1, 2025.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3285B, located 137 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra, which is the largest and longest constellation in the sky. NGC 3285B is part of the Hydra I galaxy cluster, one of the largest nearby clusters, anchored by two giant elliptical galaxies larger than the Milky Way. Positioned on the cluster’s outskirts, NGC 3285B gained attention due to hosting a Type Ia supernova in 2023, visible as a bluish dot on its disk. Hubble’s observations of this galaxy are part of a program studying 100 Type Ia supernovae across multiple wavelengths to improve cosmic distance measurements by accounting for distance and dust effects.