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NGC 4314

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Revision as of 05:13, 23 March 2006 by wikademia>Marsbound2024 (begin article; basic information on NGC 4314 with nice picture)
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File:NGC4314.jpg
Photograph of NGC 4314 by the Hubble Space Telescope

NGC 4314 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. Perhaps the most prominent and unusual feature is its prominent "nuclear starbust ring." It is thought that this explosion of star formation has occurred over the past few millions of years. This time frame is remarkably short in astronomical terms due to the fact that main sequence stars have lifetimes around ten billion years and their birth is not usually uniform throughout a galaxy. Further study will be required to understand more about the evolution of such ring structures in galaxies.