WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 9
STUNNING
SPIRAL
A galaxy spreads
its arms wide.
Like most galaxies, NGC 2903 hides a dark secret: a supermassive black hole at its core.
The inner regions of the spiral galaxy serve as the focal point for this image, taken
with the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey to better understand how such
supermassive black holes inf luence the gas, dust, and stars that lie in the center of the
galaxy around them. NGC 2903, which sits about 30 million light-years from Earth
in the constellation Leo the Lion, is intriguing because its central regions are forming
stars at a more rapid rate than average, leading researchers to wonder about the cause.
In addition to its glowing, elongated center, the galaxy also shows off bright star-
forming regions and dark lanes of interstellar dust in this close-up view. — ALISON KLESMANLUNAR GOALS
On May 13, NASA
announced the Artemis
program will return
humans to the Moon
by 2024, requesting
an initial $1.6 billion to
jump-start the project.NEW SIGNALS
LIGO and VIRGO spotted
gravitational waves
from two colliding
neutron stars for the
second time April 25.
One day later, they
recorded gravitational
waves that researchers
think may be from a
neutron star colliding
with a black hole.POWER SOURCE
Scientists have finally
discovered the source
of the glowing STEVE
phenomenon: heated
charged particles in
the upper atmosphere.
The effect is akin to a
glowing lightbulb.HOT
BYTESSNAPSHOT
QUANTUM GRAVITY
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