Telescope captures Milky Way twin

MUNICH, Germany, June 1 (UPI) -- European astronomers say a nearby galaxy is so like our Milky Way it offers a tantalizing sense of how a distant observer might see our own galactic home.

Images captured by the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, show a view close to one we would see if we could observe our own Milky Way from intergalactic space, a release from ESO headquarters in Munich, Germany, said Wednesday.

Galaxy NGC 6744, one of the largest and nearest spiral galaxies, features striking spiral arms wrapping around a dense, elongated nucleus and a dusty disc.

The dusty spiral arms are home to many glowing star-forming regions and give this Milky Way look-alike its striking spiral form, astronomers said.

One difference between NGC 6744 and our Milky Way is size. While our galaxy is roughly 100,000 light-years across, galaxy NGC 6744 extends to almost twice that diameter.