Galaxy NGC 4314 (Hubble View)
Depicts: NGC 4314, IRAS 12200+3010
Copyright: G. Fritz Benedict, Andrew Howell, Inger Jorgensen, David Chapell (University of Texas), Jeffery Kenney (Yale University), and Beverly J. Smith (CASA, University of Colorado), and NASA.
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This close-up view by Hubble also shows other interesting details in
the galaxy's core: dust lanes, a smaller bar of stars, dust and gas
embedded in the stellar ring, and an extra pair of spiral arms packed
with young stars. These details make the center resemble a miniature
version of a spiral galaxy. While it is not unusual to have dust
lanes and rings of gas in the centers of galaxies, it is uncommon to
have spiral arms full of young stars in the cores. NGC 4314 is one of
the nearest (only 40 million light-years away in the constellation
Coma Berenices) examples of a galaxy with a ring of infant stars close
to the core. This stellar ring - whose radius is 1,000 light-years -
is a great laboratory to study star formation in galaxies.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
