Galaxy NGC 4314 is a barred spiral galaxy located some 40 million light years 
away toward the constellation Coma Berenices. Barred spiral galaxies differ from 
ordinary spiral galaxies in that they exhibit a bar-shaped concentration of stars 
that runs across the nucleus of the galaxy and from which the spiral arms emanate. 
This image features a purple ring of stars, gas, and dust that encircles the 
galactic nucleus. The ring is about 1000 light years across. (The bar is not 
especially evident in this image.) The ring is made up of stars that are generally 
less than 5 million years old and is the only site of new star formation in the 
entire galaxy.

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Is this old galaxy up to new tricks? The barred spiral galaxy NGC 4314 is billions 
of years old, but its appearance has changed markedly over just the past few  
millions  of years. During that time, a nuclear ring of bright young stars has been 
evolving. The inset picture of NGC 4314 taken by McDonald Observatory shows the 
whole galaxy and boxes the small region around the core imaged by the Hubble Space 
Telescope. This inner region appears much like a miniature spiral galaxy itself, 
complete with dust lanes and spiral arms, even though it is only a few thousand 
light-years across. Further study of NGC 4314 might help astronomers understand how 
the inner and outer parts of this galaxy interact, and what caused this unusual 
ring of star formation.

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NGC 4314 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light-years away in the 
constellation Coma Berenices. Perhaps the most prominent and unusual feature is its 
"nuclear starbust ring." It is thought that this explosion of star formation has 
occurred over the past few millions of years. This time frame is remarkably short 
in astronomical terms because most main sequence stars have lifetimes of billions of 
years and their birth is not usually uniform throughout a galaxy. Further study will 
be required to understand more about the evolution of such ring structures in 
galaxies.