McDonald with HST/WFPC2 inset

A Bright Ring of Star Birth Around Core of Galaxy NGC 4314 (right), and Ground-Based Image (left)

An image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals clusters of infant stars that formed in a ring around the core of the barred-spiral galaxy NGC 4314. This stellar nursery, whose inhabitants were created within the past 5 million years, is the only place in the entire galaxy...

Close-Up View of Galaxy NGC 4314

This image, shows Hubble's close-up view of the galaxy's core, taken in December 1995 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The bluish-purple clumps that form the ring are the clusters of infant stars. Two dark, wispy lanes of dust and a pair of blue spiral arms are just...

McDonald Observatory image of NGC 4314

The image, taken in February 1996 by the 30-inch telescope Prime Focus Camera at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, shows the entire galaxy, including the bar of stars bisecting the core and the outer spiral arms, which begin near the ends of this bar.

Galaxy NGC 4314