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star wars - Is the galaxy depicted at the end of Empire Strikes Back a real galaxy?


I was reading this question about the Rebel fleet's rendezvous point, and it occurred to me that this galaxy below looks familiar: Star Wars Galaxy


I can't tell from the image whether this is an artistic creation or an actual picture of a galaxy taken by NASA or some other space agency. (Considering the date, it might be the former) but I'm sure I have seen a Hubble image or something somewhere online that looks like this galaxy.


Is this picture real or at least based on a real astrophysical image captured by a telescope somewhere? If so, what is the "real world" name for the galaxy being depicted? If not, is there a similar galaxy that inspired this artistic version? What's the closest thing that is really out there that matches this image?



Answer




The galaxy depicted appears to be nothing more than an artist's impression of a standard spiral galaxy. Telescope astronomers were able to capture images of Andromeda (M31) as far back as the late 1800s. Because of their popularity, these are the sorts of images that immediately say "galaxy" to most members of the public.


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As you can see from these scans of "The Making of Empire Strikes Back" and "The Art of Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back", the size, scale and shape of the galaxy were fully conceived by Star Wars artist Frank McQuarrie. There's no indication that he based these pictures on any specific galaxy.


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For a bit of fun, you can see the true scale of the models used in the image below.


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You may wish to note that Star Wars Made Easy identifies the object as a protostar rather than a galaxy, suggesting that it's very much smaller.


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