Credit: G. Fritz Benedict, Andrew Howell

This image, shows Hubble's close-up view of the galaxy's core, taken in December 1995 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The bluish-purple clumps that form the ring are the clusters of infant stars. Two dark, wispy lanes of dust and a pair of blue spiral arms are just outside the star-forming ring. The lanes of dust are being shepherded into the ring by the longer, primary stellar bar seen in the ground-based image. The gas is trapped inside the ring through the stars' gravitational attraction.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1998/news-1998-21

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/