Explanation:
Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of
Messier 96 in this
colorful,
detailed portrait of the beautiful
island universe.
Of course M96
is a spiral galaxy,
and counting the faint arms extending
beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand
light-years or so, about the size of our own Milky Way.
M96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant
member of the Leo I galaxy group.
Background galaxies and smaller Leo I group members
can be found by examining the picture, but accomplished
astro-imager Adam Block notes he is most intrigued
by the edge-on spiral galaxy that
apparently lies behind
the outer spiral arm near the 10 o'clock position.
The edge-on spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size
of M96.
If the spiral is similar in actual size to M96, then it
lies about 5 times
farther
away.
