NGC 2841

Forty-six million light years away in Ursa Major, NGC 2841 spins through the local group of galaxies. It’s a prime example of a flocculent galaxy. Flocculent galaxies are spiral galaxies with short or disjoint spirals that don’t form well-defined spiral arms. NGC 2841 is larger than our Milky Way galaxy at approximately 130,000 light years in breadth (the Milky Way ostensibly has a diameter of 100,000 light years). But it’s not as active in terms of star formation. This may be due to the large number of historical supernovas, which have cleared the main disk of dense formations of gas that could form stars.