Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]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. 2020 February 7 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. NGC 7331 Close Up Image Credit & [3]License: ESA/Hubble & NASA/D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University) Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy [4]NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own [5]Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation [6]Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as [7]a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's [8]famous 18th century catalog. Since the galaxy's disk [9]is inclined to our line-of-sight, long telescopic exposures often result in an image that evokes a strong sense of depth. In this [10]Hubble Space Telescope close-up, the galaxy's magnificent spiral arms feature dark obscuring dust lanes, bright bluish clusters of massive young stars, and the telltale reddish glow of active star forming regions. The bright yellowish central regions harbor populations of older, cooler stars. [11]Like the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole lies at the core of spiral galaxy NGC 7331. Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend __________________________________________________________________ [12]< | [13]Archive | [14]Submissions | [15]Index | [16]Search | [17]Calendar | [18]RSS | [19]Education | [20]About APOD | [21]Discuss | [22]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [23]Robert Nemiroff ([24]MTU) & [25]Jerry Bonnell ([26]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [27]Specific rights apply. [28]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [29]ASD at [30]NASA / [31]GSFC & [32]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2002/potw1805a_ngc7331.jpg 3. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4. http://messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/n7331.html 5. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080606.html 6. http://hawastsoc.org/deepsky/peg/index.html 7. http://www.messier.seds.org/xtra/Bios/rosse.html 8. http://messier.seds.org/xtra/history/m-cat.html 9. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040701.html 10. http://spacetelescope.org/images/potw1805a/ 11. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11149 12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200206.html 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 16. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 21. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=200207 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200208.html 23. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 24. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 25. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 26. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 28. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 29. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 30. https://www.nasa.gov/ 31. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 32. http://www.mtu.edu/