NGC 4314

File:NGC4314.jpg

Photograph of NGC 4314 by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/ESA.

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 "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 most main sequence stars have lifetimes of billions of 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.

External links

• APOD: December 12, 1999
• McDonald Observatory: 9 April 2002 News Release
• NGC 4314 at ESA/Hubble