clipped from: www.abc.net.au Scientist have patiently pieced together an 11-hour photoshoot of our galactic neighbour to create the most detailed image of its kind.
The image, taken by a high-resolution ultraviolet camera, reveals a pinwheel-shaped lavender cloud, liberally sprinkled with bursts of fuchsia, glowing like embers in the black sky.
Or, in the words of NASA astronomer Dr Stefan Immler, "the most detailed ultraviolet image of an entire galaxy ever taken".
Galaxy M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy, is a pint-sized companion to our own Milky Way located 2.9 million light-years from earth.
It shares our galaxy's spiral shape, though it contains roughly a tenth of the Milky Way's mass.