NGC 4314

The nuclear starbust ring of NGC 4314
A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of the nuclear starbust ring of NGC 4314.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Coma Berenices
Right ascension	12h 22m 32s[1]
Declination	+29° 53′ 43″[1]
Redshift	963 ± 5 km/s[1]
Type	SB(rs)a[1]
Apparent dimensions (V)	4′.2 × 3′.7[1]
Apparent magnitude (V)	11.4[1]
Other designations
UGC 7443,[1] PGC 40097[1]
See also: Galaxy, List of galaxies

NGC 4314 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. Perhaps the most prominent and unusual feature is its "nuclear starbust ring" of bright young stars. These rings are thought to be due in part to Lindblad resonance. It is thought that this explosion of star formation has occurred over the past few millions of years. This time frame is remarkably short in astronomical terms because most main sequence stars have lifetimes of billions of years and their birth is not usually uniform throughout a galaxy. Further study will be required to understand more about the evolution of such ring structures in galaxies.

See also

• AINUR

External links

• APOD: December 12, 1999
• McDonald Observatory: 9 April 2002 News Release
• ESA/Hubble NGC 4314

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} "NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database". Results for NGC 4314. http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/. Retrieved 2007-04-05.