Pinwheel of Star Birth

The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn blue star clusters, and obscuring dust lanes that provide the raw material for future generations of stars. The bright nucleus is home to an older population of stars, which grow ever more densely packed toward the center.

NGC 3982 is located about 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy spans about 30,000 light-years, one-third of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. This color image is composed of exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

The observations were taken between March 2000 and August 2009. The rich color range comes from the fact the galaxy was photographed invisible and near-infrared light. Also used was a filter that isolates hydrogen emission that emanates from bright star-forming regions dotting the spiral arms.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: A. Riess (STScI)
For image files and more information about NGC 3982, visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2010/36
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2010/36
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
For additional information, contact:
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-4514
villard@stsci.edu
Keith Noll
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-1828
noll@stsci.edu
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.