This is a nearly plan view look at a dusty spiral galaxy 60 million light years from earth (a light year is roughly 6 million million miles).
This is a nearly plan view look at a dusty spiral galaxy 60 million light years from earth (a light year is roughly 6 million million miles).
This Hubble Space Telescope picture shows that the central regions, as in most spirals, contain mainly older, yellowish stars.The outer spiral arms are considerably bluer due to the on-going formation of young blue stars.
The arms are also very rich in clouds of inter-stellar dust, seen as dark patches and streaks silhouetted against the starlight.
Due to the limited coverage of Hubble's camera only half the galaxy was photographed in 1995. In 1999 the other half was photographed and the two images combined!
Photo Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)