Fact Sheet
NCG 4314
A bright 'ring of fire' encircles the heart of galaxy NGC 4314 in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The red or pink blobs are stellar nurseries where hot, bright stars are born. The stars in these nurseries are no more than a few million years old. By comparison, the yellow stars in the center of the galaxy are billions of years old. The ring spans about 2,000 light-years -- about five percent of the galaxy's total diameter. Outside the ring, young blue stars outline spiral arms. Dark streaks across the image are lanes of interstellar dust, which block starlight. A giant black hole probably inhabits the center of the galaxy, but its effects are too small to detect in this image. The small photo at top, from a 30-inch telescope at McDonald Observatory, shows the entire galaxy, with spiral arms curving away from a central bar. The galaxy appears smooth in this image because all of its stars are about the same age -- there are no clumps of young stars like those in the galaxy’s center.
|