APOD 3.6

Today I chose to write about Spiral Galaxy NGC2841, which is a galaxy that is similar to our own in structure. In this picture it is easy to see the center of it and the hundreds of blue regions where thousands of new stars are being formed. The lanes that make up the spirals can also be easily seen which makes this picture even more astounding. The simple colors and shape of this picture are enough to make it simply amazing but the scale is even more unbelievable. This galaxy is about 300,000 light years across. This is an incomprehensible distance and is dwarfs even our own galaxy. This single galaxy probably contains millions of stars many of which have planets orbiting them and therefore poses many new possibilities for life to begin or already exist.