Astronomy Picture of the Day . ... NGC 4414: A Telling Spiral . ... How far away is this galaxy? ... Spiral galaxy NGC 4414 contains many Cepheid variable stars that oscillate in a way that allows astronomers to estimate their distance. Trifid Pillars and Jets . ... Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), a red supergiant star about 600 light years distant, is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image - the first direct picture of the surface of a star other than the Sun. ...