the image below shows the galaxy, M63, as featured on APOD today. this galaxy is about the same size as our Milky Way at 100,000 light years across. It floats about 25 million light-years away from us and is known as the sunflower galaxy. you can easily see the blue spiral arm structure, but the most amazing parts of the image, i think, are the faint wisps of structure around the outskirts of the galaxy! it's difficult to se these very dim features in most images! they show what are probably streams of dust and gas left over when smaller galaxies came within close range of the sunflower. gravitational interactions can cause such distortions in galaxies when they pass by each other and eventually merge together into one.
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