| Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers.
Even our own
Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a
modest central bar.
Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217,
pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently
released image taken by the newly repaired
Advanced Camera for Surveys on the
orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope.
Visible are dark filamentary
dust lanes, young
clusters of bright blue stars, red
emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas,
a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright
active nucleus
that likely houses a supermassive
black hole.
Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from
NGC 6217, which spans about 30,000
light years across and can be found toward the
constellation of the Little Bear
(Ursa Minor).
Credit:
NASA,
ESA, and the
Hubble SM4 ERO
Team
|
