NGC 4314

NGC 4314 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. Perhaps the most prominent and unusual feature is its "nuclear starbust ring" of bright young stars. These rings are thought to be due in part to Lindblad resonance. It is thought that this explosion of star formation has occurred over the past few millions of years. This time frame is remarkably short in astronomical terms because most main sequence stars have lifetimes of billions of years and their birth is not usually uniform throughout a galaxy. Further study will be required to understand more about the evolution of such ring structures in galaxies.