Spiral galaxy NGC 3982 in the Great Bear - Spiral galaxy NGC 3982 in Ursa...

Spiral galaxy NGC 3982 in the Great Bear - Spiral galaxy NGC 3982 in Ursa Major - The spiral galaxy NGC 3982 is located about 68 million years ago - light from Earth. It extends over about 30,000 light years. It is a spiral galaxy that houses a black hole in its heart and large zones of star formation in its arms. This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This face - on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its winding arms. 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 towards 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 Camera 3 (WFC3), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The observations were taken between March 2000 and August 2009