NASA’s Hubble Space
Telescope features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, located approximately 53 million light-years away
The “arms” of
grand design spirals appear to wind around and into the galaxy’s nucleus.
In contrast to
multi-arm and flocculent spirals, a grand design spiral galaxy has obvious and well-defined spiral arms.
A grand design
galaxy’s spiral arms stretch clearly across the galaxy through many radians and
NGC 3631’s grand spiral
arms reveals dark dust lanes and bright star-forming regions along the inner part of the spiral arms.
Star formation in
spirals is similar to a traffic jam on the interstate.