| | 2MASS Atlas Image Gallery (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05) |
 | | Imaging this galaxy in the near-IR allows us to look deeper through the extinction caused by the dust and also better map the light and mass distribution of the galaxy, since the light from spiral galaxies in the near-IR is dominated by lower-mass stars, which comprise most of a galaxy's visible mass. |
 | | It is this galaxy for which water megamasers detected in the radio orbiting very near the galaxy's center indicate the presence of a supermassive fl hole and allow an accurate kinematical measurement of the fl hole's mass. |
 | | This galaxy has been host to six historical supernovae, four of which are thought to arise from young, massive stellar progenitors, both near the nucleus and in the spiral arms, further evidence for the vigorous galactic star formation. |
| www.ipac.caltech.edu /2mass/gallery/images_galaxies.html (5729 words) |