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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Bright Galaxy NGC 2903
Explanation: Spiral galaxy NGC 2903 is only some 20 million light-years distant in the constellation Leo . One of the brighter galaxies visible from the northern hemisphere, it is surprisingly missing from Charles Messier's famous catalog of celestial sights . This impressively sharp color image shows off the galaxy's beautiful blue spiral arms. Included in the ground-based telescopic view are intriguing details of NGC 2903's central regions -- a remarkable mix of old and young star clusters with immense dust and gas clouds. In fact , NGC 2903 exhibits an exceptional rate of star formation activity near its center, also bright in radio, infrared , ultraviolet, and x-ray bands . Just a little smaller than our own Milky Way, NGC 2903 is about 80,000 light-years across.
| Date | July 6, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: R. Jay GaBany ( Cosmotography.com ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |