Astronomy Picture of the Day
05 February 2026
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: Wide Field
Image Credit: 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.
#APOD #NASA #NASAInspires #Astrophoto #Astronomy