Spiral Galaxy M96 from Hubble
From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
Dust lanes seem to swirl
around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed
portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe.
Of course M96 is a spiral
galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond
the brighter central region, it spans 100 thousand light-years or so,
making it about the size of our own Milky Way.
M96, also known as NGC 3368, is known to be
about 35 million light-years distant and a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group.
The featured image was
taken by the Hubble Space
Telescope. The reason for M96's
asymmetry is unclear -- it could have arisen from gravitational interactions
with other Leo I group
galaxies, but the lack of an intra-group diffuse glow seems to indicate few recent
interactions.
Galaxies far in the
background can be found by examining
the edges of the picture.
