Barred spiral galaxy M109

Credit: ROBERT GENDLER & JIM MISTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Caption: Barred spiral galaxy M109. This galaxy lies around 41 million light years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It has blue spiral arms full of hot young stars. Its nucleus is yellow as it contains older stars and more dust, which scatters blue light. The nucleus has an elongated bar shape, hence its classification as a barred spiral. It is thought that our Milky Way galaxy has such a bar, and as such closely resembles M109.

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Keywords: arm, arms, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, barred spiral galaxy, face on, face-on, galactic, galaxy, m109, ngc 3992, nucleus, one, single, space, spiral, spiralling, telescope, universe, ursa major

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