Explanation:
When morning twilight came to the
Paranal Observatory in Chile,
astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their
search for faint
quasars, billions of
light-years away.
And just for a moment, they used
Very Large Telescopes
at the European Southern Observatory to appreciate the beauty of
the nearby Universe.
One result was
this stunning view
of beautiful barred spiral galaxy
NGC 613, a mere 65 million light-years away
in the southern constellation
Sculptor.
Over 100 thousand light-years across,
NGC 613 seems to have more than its fair
share of spiral arms
laced with cosmic dust clouds and bright star forming regions
near the ends of a dominant central bar.
Radio emission indicates the presence of a massive
black hole
at the center of
NGC 613.
