NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a barred spiral galaxy that looks like a giant galactic eye. Classified as NGC 2217, this galaxy is located approximately 65 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Canis Major.
This galaxy, also known as AM 0619-271), is similar in size to our own Milky Way at 100,000 light-years across. You’ll find many of its stars concentrated in its central region forming the luminous bar, surrounded by a set of tightly wound spiral arms. The central bar isn’t just eye candy, as it plays an important role in the evolution of barred spiral galaxies, helping funnel gas from the disk into the middle of the galaxy.
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Weighing from a few hundred to over a billion times the mass of our Sun, supermassive black holes are present in almost all large galaxies. This image was colorized with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS),” said the NASA Hubble Mission Team.
