Posted on 10/23/2015 10:13:01 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. A popular target for earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble Space Telescope field of view spans about 7,000 light-years or so across M94's central region. The sharp close-up examines the galaxy's compact, bright nucleus and prominent inner dust lanes, surrounded by a remarkable bluish ring of young, massive stars. The massive stars in the ring are all likely less than 10 million years old, indicating the galaxy experienced a well-defined era of rapid star formation. As a result, while the small, bright nucleus is typical of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, M94 is also known as a starburst galaxy. Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can explore in detail reasons for the galaxy's burst of star formation.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA]
Yup. It’s messy all right.
This is a relatively young galaxy..................
As galaxies go, this one is a toddler.........................
Big Bling....
what if its not an expanding galaxy but actually material going down the drain ?(into a black hole)
It looks more like that than something exploding outwards
If it’s 15 million light years away, how could the inner stars be less than 10 million years old? Wouldn’t they all be at least 15 million years old??
No doubt who the astronomer’s favorite hockey player and team is.
“Now I can die in piece” Sign in the stands
Effectively we are looking back in time 15 million years to a time when the stars were 10 million years old.
In the first line of the article it calls the galaxy M94 an “Island Universe” FAIL
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