SPACEMAS DAY 14 ✨🪐🌎☄️☀️🌕
Most galaxies don't have any rings of stars and gas but why does M94 have two? First, spiral galaxy M94 has an inner ring of newly formed stars surrounding its nucleus, giving it not only an unusual appearance but also a strong interior glow. A leading hypothesis states that there’s an elongated knot of stars known as a bar, and it rotates in M94. This has generated a burst of star formation in this inner ring. Observations have also revealed another ring, an outer ring. This one is more faint, different in color, not closed, and relatively complex. What caused this outer ring to form is currently unknown. M94, pictured here, spans about 45,000 light years in total, lies about 15 million light years away, and can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici).
Image Credit & Copyright: Brian Brennan
