Explanation:
NGC 3314
consists of two large spiral
galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line-up.
The foreground spiral is viewed nearly
face-on, its
pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters.
But against the glow of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of
interstellar dust are
also seen to echo the face-on spiral's structure.
The dust lanes are
surprisingly pervasive, and this remarkable
pair of
overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which
absorption of visible light can be used to directly explore the
distribution
of dust in distant spirals.
NGC 3314 is
about 140 million light-years away in the multi-headed
constellation
Hydra.
This color composite was constructed
from Hubble Space Telescope images made in 1999 and 2000.
