Explanation:
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers.
Even our own
Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a
modest central bar.
Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073,
pictured above,
was captured in spectacular detail in this recently
released image taken by the orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope.
Visible are dark filamentary
dust lanes, young
clusters of bright blue stars, red
emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas,
a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright
active nucleus
that likely houses a supermassive
black hole.
Light takes about 55 million years to reach us from
NGC 1073,
which spans about 80,000
light years across.
NGC 1073
can be seen with a moderately-sized telescope toward the constellation of the Sea Monster
(Cetus),
Fortuitously, the above image not only caught the X-ray bright star system IXO 5, visible on the upper left and likely internal to the barred spiral, but three
quasars far in the distance.
