Explanation:
Beautiful island universe
M94 lies
a mere 15 million light-years
distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs,
Canes Venatici.
A popular target for
earth-based astronomers,
the face-on
spiral
galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across.
Its remarkable features include prominent dust lanes,
a bright, point-like nucleus, and a bright,
bluish ring dominated by the light of young, massive stars.
The massive stars in the ring are all likely less than 10 million
years old, indicating the galaxy experienced a well-defined
era of rapid star formation.
As a result, while the small, bright nucleus is typical of
the Seyfert class of active galaxies,
M94 is also known as a
starburst galaxy.
Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can explore
in detail
reasons for the galaxy's burst of star formation.
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