NASA Hubble Picture Shows Epic Cosmic Photobomb in Milky Way [PHOTOS]

The latest NASA Hubble picture showed that not only humans are capable of photobombing. A spiral galaxy in the Milky Way proves that they can, too!

NASA Hubble Picture: Spiral Galaxy UGC 11537

The stunning Hubble image of a massive spiral galaxy, which is millions of light-years away from Earth, was just published by NASA.

As of writing, the posted NASA Hubble picture has 2,100 likes and 360 retweets.

The outer space is a huge and spacious realm filled with countless discoveries for humanity. Astronomers never run out of things to uncover, whether they're studying within the Milky Way or beyond it to distant galaxies.

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope, which is a more than 31-year-old NASA instrument, is one tool that has been particularly useful in this never-ending search.

Regardless of the space agency telescope's age, it continues to capture mind-blowing photos of the universe. Hubble has taken dozens of beautiful photographs of the weird world we all call home, whether it's a faraway galaxy or a massive nebula.

Recently, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a side view of the magnificent spiral galaxy UGC 11537, per Screen Rant. Moreover, Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) recorded the galaxy's closely packed spiral arms spinning around its center in visible and infrared light.

The picture shows the luminous bands of stars and dark clouds of dust as they weave their way across the galaxy.

For those who do not know, UGC 11537 is located in the constellation Aquila, which is 230 million light-years away from Earth and near the Milky Way's surface.

Because they are so near, surrounding stars from our own galaxy have sneaked into the photograph--the two bright stars in front of UGC 11537 are Milky Way invaders.

Moreover, the spikes that encircle these stars are diffraction spikes, which are image errors.

Diffraction spikes are caused by starlight colliding with the structure that holds Hubble's secondary mirror in place.

This photograph was taken as part of a series of observations intended to assist scientists in calculating the mass of supermassive black holes in distant galaxies.

"Hubble's sharp-eyed observations along with data from ground-based telescopes allowed astronomers to make detailed models of the mass and motions of stars in these galaxies, which in turn helps constrain the mass of supermassive black holes," NASA furthered on their released statement.

NASA Hubble Space Telescope Returns to Full Science Operations

As previously reported, the space telescope has been restored on Monday, Dec. 6, and all four operational instruments are now collecting data once again.

Aside from this encouraging news, the team has not identified any further synchronization message issues since November 1.

To give background details, Hubble has gone into safe mode along with other scientific instruments after several synchronization messages issues last October.

On the other hand, NASA also indicated that the crew would continue to develop and test software updates for the space telescope. This approach will allow them to continue their investigation even if they face frequently lost synchronization messages in the future.

Meanwhile, Wio News reported that NASA plans to launch the successor of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope soon, named James Webb Space Telescope. This satellite telescope will be more powerful than Hubble's and will be fully equipped with cutting-edge technology, according to reports.

To clarify, James Webb Space Telescope will not replace Hubble. After all, the two space telescopes use different technologies which could further assist researchers and scientists.