Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1073 Is Long-Distance Sexiness.

NGC 1073 is a pretty, barred spiral galaxy. It’s also a bit of a hike. Planning on visiting it? It’s going to take you 55 million years. After you master travel at the speed of light.

NASA:

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own  Milky Way Galaxy  is thought to have a  modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073,  pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently released image taken by the orbiting  Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary  dust lanes, young  clusters  of bright blue stars, red  emission nebulas  of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright  active nucleus  that likely houses a supermassive  black hole. Light takes about 55 million years to reach us from  NGC 1073, which spans about 80,000  light yearsacross.  NGC 1073  can be seen with a moderately-sized telescope toward the constellation of the Sea Monster (Cetus), Fortuitously, the  above image  not only caught the X-ray bright star system IXO 5, visible on the upper left and likely internal to the barred spiral, but three  quasars  far in the distance.

Gorgeous.