NGC 1512 is a barred spiral galaxy of about 70,000 light-years across, located some 30 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Horologium, while it is moving away from us at approximately 898 kilometers per second.
It is a member of the Dorado Group of galaxies.
The long spiral arms of this galaxy are too dim in visible light for most telescopes to detect, but they emit a great amount of ultraviolet light, what enables us to see these arms around the outsides of NGC 1512.These faint spiral arms are made of mostly young stars shining brightly at ultraviolet wavelengths. Why? Because the stars are so hot. Young stars burn their nuclear fuel with impetuous speed, making them hotter and bluer than older, cooler stars such as the Sun. Ultraviolet is a sort of “ultra-blue” that reveals the youngest, hottest stars of all. By observing the ultraviolet glow of young stars, we can see where star formation is active
A stunning 2,400 light-year-wide ring of infant star clusters is surrounding the core of NGC 1512. Such circumstellar star-forming rings are quite common in the Universe. In barred spiral galaxies they may in fact comprise the most numerous class of nearby starburst regions. The giant bar, which is too faint to be seen in this image, funnels the gas to the inner ring, where massive stars are formed within numerous star clusters.
In this galaxy newly born star clusters exist in both dusty and clean environments. The clean clusters are readily seen in ultraviolet and visible light, appearing as bright, blue clumps in the image. However, the dusty clusters are revealed only by the glow of the gas clouds in which they are hidden, as detected in red and infrared wavelengths. This glow can be seen as red light permeating the dark, dusty lanes in the ring.The dust obscuration of clusters appears to be an on-off phenomenon. The clusters are either completely hidden, enshrouded in their birth clouds, or almost completely exposed. Stellar winds and powerful radiation from the bright, newly born stars have cleared away the original natal dust cloud in a fast and efficient “cleansing” process.
To the lower right of NGC 1512 lies the small elliptical galaxy NGC 1510. The two galaxies are currently separated by a mere 68,000 light-years, supposing that a close encounter is currently in progress. A spiral arm from NGC 1512 appears to be wrapped around the smaller galaxy, showing it is being distorted by strong gravitational interactions with NGC 1510.