Let's go, but where are we going? What is a galaxy, brother? Let's start with the definition of a galaxy.

Galaxies are like huge cosmic neighbourhoods full of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity. They can be of various sizes: some may have millions of stars, others billions! Our galaxy is the Milky Way, and it is just one of billions of galaxies in our universe.

You are looking at the living galaxy NGC 4654, about 55 million light-years away. The Hubble Space Telescope captured this galaxy in ultraviolet and infrared light.

About 500 million years ago, NGC 4654 interacted with a companion galaxy that stripped NGC 4654's gas along its edge, limiting star formation in that region and contributing to the asymmetric distribution of the galaxy's stars. Scientists are studying galaxies like NGC 4654 to study the connection between young stars and the cold gas from which they form.

About the image; A massive, oblique spiral galaxy with a bright orange core fills the image, surrounded by massive spiral arms glowing with bright blue stars and covered in dark brown dust.