Explanation:
Grand spiral galaxies
often seem to get all the glory.
Their newly formed, bright, blue
star clusters along beautiful, symmetric spiral arms
are guaranteed to attract attention.
But small irregular galaxies form stars too, like
NGC 4449,
located about 12 million light-years away.
The well-studied
galaxy is similar in size, and often compared to our
Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
This lovely
color image shows NGC 4449's general bar shape,
also characteristic of the LMC, with
scattered young blue star clusters.
Near the bottom is the pinkish glow of
atomic hydrogen gas, the telltale
tracer of massive star forming regions.
NGC 4449 is a member of a
group
of galaxies found in the constellation Canes Venatici.
In fact, interactions with nearby
galaxies
are thought to have influenced star formation in NGC 4449.
