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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                   2025 April 7   
      A bright spiral galaxy fills the image with blue spiral arms laced with   
           red-brown dust. Please see the explanation for more detailed   
                                   information.   
      
                       NGC 4414: A Flocculent Spiral Galaxy   
        Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Graur, S. W. Jha, A. Filippenko   
      
      Explanation: How much mass do flocculent spirals hide? The featured   
      image of flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the Hubble   
      Space Telescope to help answer this question. Flocculent spirals --   
      galaxies without well-defined spiral arms -- are a quite common form of   
      galaxy, and NGC 4414 is one of the closest. Stars and gas near the   
      visible edge of spiral galaxies orbit the center so fast that the   
      gravity from a large amount of unseen dark matter must be present to   
      hold them together. Understanding the matter and dark matter   
      distribution of NGC 4414 helps humanity calibrate the rest of the   
      galaxy and, by deduction, flocculent spirals in general. Further,   
      calibrating the distance to NGC 4414 helps humanity calibrate the   
      cosmological distance scale of the entire visible universe.   
      
                         Tomorrow's picture: Moon sisters   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
   --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7   
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