Galaxy NGC 2787

Galaxy NGC 2787 is located 24 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, the celestial home of the Big Dipper. This unique galaxy displays dramatic arms of dark dust that encircle its bright, luminous center like cosmic ribbons, creating a striking contrast between the dusty lanes and the brilliant stellar core. The dust lanes trace the galaxy's spiral structure and mark regions where future generations of stars may form. Scattered throughout and around the galaxy are numerous points of light representing globular clusters—huge, ancient collections of hundreds of thousands to millions of old stars bound tightly together by gravity. These globular clusters orbit the galaxy in a spherical halo and are among the oldest objects in the universe, containing stars that formed over 10 billion years ago. NGC 2787's combination of dust lanes and globular clusters provides astronomers with insights into both ongoing galactic evolution and ancient stellar populations.