Nothing makes a better computer desktop wallpaper than a space picture. And some of the most beautiful pictures are galaxies. Here are a few galaxy wallpapers you can use to make your computer desktop look even better. You can see the small pictures here, and then click on an image to see a high-resolution version.
To update your computer desktop with one of these galaxy wallpapers, click to open up a high resolution version of the image. Then right-click on the image and choose “Set as Background”. In Mac OS X, you choose “Set as Desktop Background”.
This galaxy wallpaper is the Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104. This photograph was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and shows the galaxy seen nearly edge on. It’s about 50,000 light-years across and is more than 28 million light-years from Earth.
This galaxy wallpaper shows the galaxy triplet Arp 274. This was also captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and although they look like they’re merging, they’re probably far apart. They just look like a collection from our point of view.
This is M74, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. This galaxy is a little smaller than the Milky Way, but we’re lucky enough to be seeing it almost face on, so we can see detailed structures in the core. You can also see the bright knots that contain regions of newly forming stars.
If you like more galaxy wallpapers, I highly recommend the wallpaper section of the Hubble Space Telescope website. You can get other galaxies, nebulae and star clusters.
If you’d like more info on galaxies, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases on Galaxies, and here’s NASA’s Science Page on Galaxies.
We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about galaxies – Episode 97: Galaxies.