Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  Fireworks Galaxy  ·  NGC 6946
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Fireworks Galaxy - NGC 6946, Massimo Di Fusco
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Fireworks Galaxy - NGC 6946

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Fireworks Galaxy - NGC 6946, Massimo Di Fusco
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Fireworks Galaxy - NGC 6946

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Description

The Fireworks Galaxy (also known as NGC 6946) is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25 million light-years, similar to the distance of M101 in the constellation Ursa Major. Both were once considered to be part of the Local Group, but are now known to be among the dozen bright spiral galaxies near the Milky Way but beyond the confines of the Local Group. NGC 6946 lies within the Virgo Supercluster.
Discovered by William Herschel on 9 September 1798, this well-studied galaxy has a diameter of approximately 40000 light-years, about one-third of the Milky Way's size, and it contains roughly half the number of stars as our galaxy. It is heavily obscured by interstellar matter due to its location close to the galactic plane of the Milky Way. Due to its prodigious star formation it has been classified as an active starburst galaxy. NGC 6946 has also been classified as a double-barred spiral galaxy, with the inner, smaller bar presumably responsible for funneling gas into its center.

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