NGC 2841, Unbarred Spiral Galaxy in the Constellation Ursa Major
This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 2841, located about 46 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy is helping astronomers solve one of the oldest puzzles in astronomy: Why do galaxies look so smooth, with stars sprinkled evenly throughout? An international team of astronomers has discovered that rivers of young stars flow from their hot, dense stellar nurseries, dispersing out to form large, smooth distributions. This image is a composite of three different wavelengths from Spitzer's infrared array camera. The shortest wavelengths are displayed inblue, and mostly show the older stars in NGC 2841, as well as foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. The cooler areas are highlighted in red, and show the dusty, gaseous regions of the galaxy. Blue shows infrared light of microns, green represents light and red, light. The contribution from starlight measured at microns has been subtracted from the data to enhance the visibility of the dust shortest wavelengths are displayed inblue, and mostly show the older stars in NGC 2841, as well as foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer Space Telescope Mission. Image taken with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC).
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