                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2026 February 4
    A spiral galaxy is shown that seems to have rings in place of spiral
     arms. The outer ring is blue and filled with stars, while the inner
       ring is more red. The center has a vertical bar. Please see the
                 explanation for more detailed information.

                     Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: Wide Field
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Stern

   Explanation: Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy
   have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512's center -- and so
   hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which glows brightly with
   recently formed stars. Next out is a ring of stars and dust appearing
   both red and blue, called, counter-intuitively, the inner ring. This
   inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar of stars that runs
   horizontally across the galaxy. Farthest out in this wide field image
   is a ragged structure that might be considered an outer ring. This
   outer ring appears spiral-like and is dotted with clusters of bright
   blue stars. All these ring structures are thought to be affected by NGC
   1512's own gravitational asymmetries in a drawn-out process called
   secular evolution. The featured image was captured last month from a
   telescope at Deep Sky Chile in Chile.

                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

