An elliptical galaxy (left) and a spiral galaxy (right). The image includes near-infrared light from the James Webb Space Telescope and ultraviolet and visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Neptune's elliptical, oval-shaped orbit keeps the planet an average distance from the sun of almost 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers), or roughly 30 times as far away as Earth, making it ...

It took just a few minutes for the telescope to image Neptune close up, and another 20 to take a wider view, revealing not just the planet but myriad galaxies behind it stretching into the cosmos.

What happens when you build the largest digital camera on Earth, capable of capturing 3.2 gigapixel images, and aim it at the depths of space from a remote Chilean mountaintop? You get results like ...

This is not an internal reflection — it’s a 10th-magnitude elliptical galaxy some 8,000 light-years away (far beyond Mirach, which sits just 200 light-years from Earth).

Galaxy Arp 184, however, we are seeing from an angle, so it looks different. More than that, though, Arp 184 is skewed so that it isn’t perfectly spiral shaped.

The unusual galaxy NGC 4694 has traits unique to the two main galaxy types, spiral and elliptical. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker) What it is: The galaxy NGC 4694, a member of the ...

Within the constellation Virgo numerous galaxies that comprise the Virgo Cluster, including the potato-shaped elliptical M87, whose supermassive black hole was imaged in 2019. Up Next Previous ...

There are also elliptical galaxies, which are large and spherical rather than flat, similar to a rugby ball. The latter don’t produce new stars but are dominated by stars formed more than 10 ...