Credit & Copyright: Roberto Colombari
Explanation:
It is one of the more massive galaxies known.
A mere 46 million light-years distant, spiral galaxy NGC 2841
can be found in the northern constellation of
Ursa Major.
This sharp view of the gorgeous
island universe
shows off a striking yellow nucleus and galactic disk.
Dust lanes, small, pink star-forming regions, and young blue star clusters
are embedded in the patchy, tightly
wound
spiral arms.
In contrast, many other spirals
exhibit grand, sweeping arms with large star-forming regions.
NGC 2841
has a diameter of over 150,000 light-years,
even larger than
our own
Milky Way and captured by this composite image
merging exposures from the orbiting 2.4-meter
Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based 8.2-meter
Subaru Telescope.
X-ray images
suggest that resulting winds and stellar explosions create
plumes of hot gas extending into a halo around
NGC 2841.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy
Publications with words: spiral galaxy
See also: