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> Spiral galaxy NGC 3949 in Ursa Major

Spiral galaxy NGC 3949 in Ursa Major

author: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/Novapix

reference: a-gax39-49001

Image Size 300 DPI: 16 * 11 cm

Like our Milky Way, this galaxy has a blue disk of young stars peppered with bright pink star-birth regions. In contrast to the blue disk, the bright central bulge is made up of mostly older, redder stars. NGC 3949 lies about 50 million light-years from Earth. It is a member of a loose cluster of some six or seven dozens of galaxies located in the direction of the Big Dipper, in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). It is one of the larger galaxies of this cluster. This image was created from Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in October 2001. Separate exposures through blue, visible, and near-infrared filters have been combined to make the natural color picture.

Keywords for this photo:

ASTRONOMY - GALAXY - HST - HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - NGC 3949 - SPIRAL GALAXY - STAR - STAR FORMATION - URSA MAJOR - WIDE FIELD PLANETARY CAMERA -