Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. McQuinn (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)

This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows myriad stars residing in the central regions of 4163. The bluish dots are younger stars; the reddish dots, older stars. The irregularly shaped red blobs in the images of NGC 4163 are regions of current starburst activity. Starbursts are areas of intense star formation. The collection of stars in NGC 4163 is spherical, with a higher concentration of stars forming in the center. This galaxy is part of a Hubble study of starbursts in nearby, small, or dwarf, galaxies. Based on this study, astronomers have found that starbursts continue 100 times longer than first thought, lasting 200 million to 400 million years. NGC 4163 shows that starbursts are not isolated events, but sweep across a galaxy.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-19

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

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