Astronomy Picture of the Day: Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841 Close Up
|1:03:03 AM, Friday, March 04, 2011| -- "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, but this close-up Hubble image spans about 34,000
light-years along the galaxy's inner region. X-ray images
suggest that resulting winds and stellar explosions create
plumes of hot gas extending into a halo around NGC 2841." Fire
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