wise_WISE2010-045B December 14th, 2010
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team
NGC 300 is a textbook spiral galaxy. In fact, it is such a good representation of a spiral galaxy that astronomers have studied it in great detail to learn about the structure of all spirals in general. Infrared images like this one from WISE show astronomers where areas of gas and warm dust are concentrated -- features that cannot be seen in visible light. This gas and dust is primarily found near star-forming regions in the spiral arms. There isnt a significant amount of gas and dust in the central core in this type of spiral galaxy, so it appears relatively dim. At about 39,000 light-years across, NGC 300 is only about 40 percent the size of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Provider: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
Image Source: /image/wise/WISE2010-045B
Curator: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Berkeley, CA, USA
Image Use Policy: Pulic Domain
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