78-Hubble’s 32nd Anniversary: An Eclectic Galaxy Grouping

NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 32nd birthday with a stunning look at five galaxies, a close-knit collection called the Hickson Compact Group 40.
This amazing assembly includes a giant elliptical galaxy, glowing with blended light from billions of stars. Several spiral galaxies show prominent dusty lanes that outline their winding spiral arms, regions where star formation is active. We see one galaxy oriented edge-on, showing off its prominent dust along its flattened starry disk.