Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Being a barred spiral galaxy makes NGC 1808 somewhat similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy . The above picture of NGC 1808's center, in representative color, was recently taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released yesterday. Perhaps gravitational pull from a recent pass of neighboring galaxy NGC 1792 has caused matter to move inward along NGC 1808's bar, triggering the burst of star formation . Also prominent are blue clusters of stars and filaments of dark dust obscuring even more activity.
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