Located around 137 million light-years away in the Hydra constellation, the spiral galaxy NGC 3285B—also referred to as LEDA 31293, ESO 501-18, or IRAS 10322-2723—spans roughly 100,000 light-years across.
The galaxy features a bright golden core with several sweeping spiral arms that appear faint red in color. It is part of both the NGC 3312 galaxy group (LGG 210) and the larger Hydra I galaxy cluster.
According to NASA’s Hubble team, “NGC 3285B belongs to Hydra I, one of the nearest massive galaxy clusters. These clusters typically contain hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity.”
At the heart of Hydra I are two massive elliptical galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years wide—roughly 1.5 times the size of the Milky Way. NGC 3285B, however, sits farther out on the edge of the cluster.
Hubble focused on this galaxy because it was the site of a Type Ia supernova in 2023. These supernovae occur when a white dwarf star explodes, briefly producing a burst of light nearly five billion times brighter than the Sun. The supernova, called SN 2023xqm, appears as a bluish dot on the left edge of the galaxy’s disk.
This image was captured as part of a project aimed at studying 100 Type Ia supernovae using ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared light. The goal is to better understand how distance and cosmic dust can alter the appearance of these stellar explosions—specifically, how they may look redder than they really are.
By refining these measurements, astronomers can improve how we calculate distances across the universe.
