Messier 100 - Star Formation

Star Formation

Messier 100 is considered an starburst galaxy, with it concentrated within a ring -actually two tightly wound spiral arms attached to a small nuclear bar with a radius of 1 kilo-parsec-, where star formation has been taking place since at least 500 million years ago in separate bursts.

As usual on spiral galaxies of the Virgo Cluster, in the rest of the disk both star formation and neutral hydrogen, of which M100 is deficient compared to isolated spirals of similar Hubble type, are truncated within the galaxy's disk, something caused by interactions with the intracluster medium of Virgo.

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