Today’s pretty space picture is a new snap from the Hubble Space Telescope. This is spiral galaxy Messier 74, a feature that amateur astronomers find so hard to detect in the night sky that it has been nicknamed ‘The Phantom Galaxy’.

Located about 32 million light-years away, there are around 100 billion stars in the galaxy (press release).

Image: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration