Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: NGC 1808 is a galaxy in turmoil. A barred spiral with marked similarities to our home Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 1808 is distinguished by a peculiar nucleus, an unusually warped disk, and strange flows of hydrogen gas out from the central regions. Amidst all of this, NGC 1808 is undergoing so much star formation it has been deemed a starburst galaxy. In the above color-enhanced photograph, regions of active star formation and shown by their blue glow. Here bright blue stars have recently formed and are energizing large clouds of surrounding hydrogen gas. The reddish brown regions indicate dense interstellar dust. NGC 1808 is a relatively close 40 million light-years away, and stretches about 35,000 light-years across. The peculiar state of NGC 1808 may be caused by the gravity of neighboring galaxy NGC 1792.

NGC 1808是一個動盪的星系。 這個棒旋星系與我們的銀河系有諸多相似之處，不過，NGC 1808以另有特殊的核心、不尋常的扭曲星系盤、及從核心流出的奇特氫氣流而著名。 帶著這些特殊性質的NGC 1808，正在經歷巨量的恆星誕生，故又稱為是星暴星系。 在上面這幅色彩強化影像裡，活躍恆星形成區以其泛藍輻射來呈現。 其內最近形成的明亮泛藍恆星，正在激發周圍的龐大氫氣雲。 紅棕色的區域則為星際塵埃密集之處。 距離約4000萬光年的NGC 1808，其跨幅約為35,000光年，為相對鄰近的星系。 NGC 1808之所以有這些特殊的狀態，可能是由鄰近的星系NGC 1792星系之引力所造成的。