This new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field and Planetary 
Camera 2 (WFPC2) shows the unique galaxy pair called NGC 3314. Through an 
extraordinary chance alignment, a face-on spiral galaxy lies precisely in front of 
another larger spiral. This line-up provides us with the rare chance to visualize 
dark material within the front galaxy, seen only because it is silhouetted against 
the object behind it. Dust lying in the spiral arms of the foreground galaxy stands 
out where it absorbs light from the more distant galaxy. This silhouetting shows us 
where the interstellar dust clouds are located, and how much light they absorb. The 
outer spiral arms of the front galaxy appear to change from bright to dark, as they 
are projected first against deep space, and then against the bright background of 
the other galaxy. NGC 3314 lies about 140 million light-years from Earth, in the 
direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra. The bright blue stars 
forming a pinwheel shape near the center of the front galaxy have formed recently 
from interstellar gas and dust. A small, red patch near the center of the image is 
the bright nucleus of the background galaxy, NGC 3314b. It is reddened for the same 
reason the setting sun looks red. When light passes through a volume containing small 
particles (molecules in the Earth's atmosphere or interstellar dust particles in 
galaxies), its color becomes redder.

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Through an extraordinary chance alignment, the Hubble telescope has captured a view of 
a face-on spiral galaxy lying precisely in front of another larger spiral. The unique 
pair is called NGC 3314. This line-up provides astronomers with the rare chance to see 
the dark material within the foreground galaxy, seen only because it is silhouetted 
against the light from the object behind it. NGC 3314 lies about 140 million 
light-years from Earth in the direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra. 
This picture is one of many produced by the Hubble Heritage Program, created 1-1/2 
years ago to publicly release some of the best celestial views taken by the telescope's 
visible-light camera.

The spiral arms of the foreground galaxy appear dark where the dust is silhouetted 
against the light from the more distant galaxy. The bright blue stars forming a pinwheel 
shape near the center of the foreground galaxy have formed recently from interstellar 
gas and dust.

A small, red patch near the center of the image is the bright nucleus of the background 
galaxy. It is reddened for the same reason the setting sun looks red. When light passes 
through a volume containing small particles (molecules in the Earth's atmosphere or 
interstellar dust particles in galaxies), its color becomes redder.

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Can this be a spiral galaxy? In fact, NGC 3314 consists of two large spiral galaxies 
which just happen to almost exactly line-up. The foreground spiral is viewed nearly 
face-on, its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. But against the glow 
of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust are also seen to 
echo the face-on spiral's structure. The dust lanes are surprisingly pervasive, and this 
remarkable pair of overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which 
absorption of visible light can be used to directly explore the distribution of dust in 
distant spirals. NGC 3314 is about 140 million light-years away in the southern 
constellation of Hydra. Just released, this color composite was constructed from Hubble 
Space Telescope images made in 1999 and 2000.