Barred
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
Big,
beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies
some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus.
This
Hubble Space Telescope composite
view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the largest
Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy.
NGC 1300 spans
over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking
details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms.
In
fact, on close
inspection the nucleus of this classic barred spiral
itself shows a remarkable region of spiral structure about
3,000 light-years across.
Like
other spiral
galaxies, including our own Milky Way, NGC 1300 is
thought to have a supermassive central black hole.
