APOD 4.8

This beautiful, barred spiral galaxy is known as M61 or NGC 4303. It's bright spiral arms, immense dust lanes, and short central bar remind us of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is located about 55 million light-years away, nearby the Virgo Super Cluster of Galaxies. When it was first discovered by Barnabus Oriani in 1779, it was mistaken for a comet. I selected this image as today's APOD because we are nearing the end of the school year so our astronomy final exam is coming up and one of the topics on the exam is going to be galaxies.