The image shows a luminous, face-on spiral shaped like a softly glowing cosmic pinwheel against a dark, star-speckled background. A compact white central core anchors the scene, from which broad spiral arms sweep outward in graceful arcs, filling much of the frame. These arms look textured and mottled rather than smooth, dotted with bright knots and layered colors with blue highlights, red sprinkles and purple confetti. Together, the overlapping colors give the galaxy a speckled, dynamic appearance, emphasizing both its immense scale and the active environments distributed throughout its wide, extended disk.
Credit: X-ray: Chandra: ASA/CXC/JHU/K. Kuntz et al.; UV/Optical: XMM-Newton: ESA/XMM/R. Willatt; Opt
by Neaterntal