WISE

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Observation • May 25th, 2011

This fuzzy-looking galaxy is a flocculent, or patchy, spiral. It is largely veiled by gas and dust at visible-light wavelengths, but when viewed with WISE, its arms are clearly revealed. In 2004, NGC 2403 was host to one of the largest supernova in recent decades -- SN 2004dj was first observed in 2004 in Japan and was visible for 8 months. NGC 2403 is located 11.4 million-light years away in the constellation Camelopardalis, and is about 73,000 light-years across.