Messier 81 is a grand design spiral galaxy and one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. It is located million light-years from Earth. The galaxy’s spiral arms, which wind all the way down into its nucleus, are made up of young, bluish, hot stars formed in the past few million years. They also host a population of stars formed in an episode of star formation that started about 600 million years ago. Ultraviolet light from hot, young stars is fluorescing the surrounding clouds of hydrogen gas. A unique optimised and enhanced version of an NASA image / credit NASA

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Size: 14000px × 8582px
Location: Space
Photo credit: © NASA / digitaleye / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 344mb8bit, 81, color, colour, cosmic, cosmos, digitaleye, enhanced, exploration, galaxy, horizontal, hubble, jamie, m81, marshall, messier, misc21_nasa034, nasa, optimised, optimized, quest, space, spiral, stars, tribaleye, universe