One-Armed Spiral Galaxy
NGC 4725
While most spiral
galaxies, including our own
Milky Way, have two or more spiral arms, NGC 4725 has only one.
In this sharp color
composite image, the solo spira mirabilis seems
to wind from a prominent ring of bluish, newborn star clusters and red tinted
star forming regions.
The odd
galaxy also sports obscuring dust lanes a yellowish central bar structure composed
of an older population of stars.
NGC 4725 is over 100
thousand light-years across and lies 41 million light-years away in the
well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices.
Computer simulations of the
formation of single spiral arms suggest that they can be either leading or
trailing arms with respect to a galaxy's overall rotation.
Also included in the
frame, a more traditional looking spiral appears as a smaller background
galaxy.
Image Data: Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Space Telescope, Additional
Color data: Adam Block, Bob Franke, Maurice Toet - Assembly
and Processing: Robert
Gendler