About the Images on the Galaxy Trading Cards
All of the pictures on the cards are Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images. Many
of the galaxies on the cards have been featured in news stories over the years. For
example, the image NGC 4321, also known as M100, was one of the first images
released after the Hubble Space Telescope’s first servicing mission. Other images
were taken from HST’s archives of scientific observations. The observations may
have been made by scientists looking for special features of galaxies, such as a
supermassive black hole at the center
of a galaxy or an “active galactic
nucleus,” where the core of the galaxy
produces more energy than the rest of
the galaxy combined.