A Beautiful Spiral in Tucana, NGC 406

Galaxy NGC 406 exhibits spiral arms that are mainly populated by young, massive, bluish stars and crossed by dark dust lanes. As is typically observed in this kind of spiral galaxy, the yellowish central bulge, dominated by an older stellar population, is less prominent and almost totally embedded in the disk structure. NGC 406 is approximately 60,000 light-years across and is located in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. This detailed image also shows a significant number of more distant galaxies in the background. Some of them are visible as reddish fuzzy spots through the bluish spiral arms of the foreground galaxy.