It's the year 2000. We're floating in space, and we come across the side view of a spectacular spiral galaxy. It's called UGC 10043 and is located 150 million light-years away.
Spiral galaxies like this one are vast structures of stars, gas and dust, characterized by swirling arms that extend from their centers. From where we are, we observe a bluish light emanating from the arms of our spiral galaxy, telling us that new stars are being born and growing up. From this side-on view, we actually can't see UGC 10043's spiral arms, which are shrouded in a thick cloud of cosmic dust that covers much of the galaxy's light anyway. Rather, the galaxy appears to us as a thin, striking line across the cosmos.
