NGC 5676
Encyclopedia
NGC 5676 is an unbarred
Unbarred spiral galaxy
An unbarred spiral galaxy is a type of spiral galaxy without a central bar, or one that is not a barred spiral galaxy. It is designated with an SA in the galaxy morphological classification scheme.The Sombrero Galaxy is an unbarred spiral galaxy....

 spiral galaxy
Spiral galaxy
A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...

 in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 Boötes.

Disk

This spiral galaxy is notably asymmetric. The spiral arms on the south side of the galaxy are chaotic in appearance, whereas the spiral arms on the north side of the galaxy are very well-defined. Also, the spiral arms on the south side of the disk extend twice as far from the galaxy's nucleus as the spiral arms on the north side. Because of the fragmentary appearance of some of the spiral arms, this galaxy is classified as a flocculent galaxy.

Star formation

The north part of the disk also contains what appears to be a very intense region of star formation
Star formation
Star formation is the process by which dense parts of molecular clouds collapse into a ball of plasma to form a star. As a branch of astronomy star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds as precursors to the star formation process and the study of young...

. Unusually, the star formation within this region appears to be more intense than the star formation in the galaxy's nucleus, and it is the brightest infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

source within the disk.

External links



Database references
Simbad data
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