By Ron Cowen
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a strikingly detailed image of the starlit arms, glowing gas, and dark dust clouds of a galaxy known as a barred spiral. Dubbed NGC 1300, the galaxy lies 69 million light-years from Earth.
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Unlike the arms of ordinary spiral galaxies, those of a barred spiral don’t extend all the way into the galactic center. Instead, they’re connected to the two ends of a bar-shaped stretch of stars.