This collage of images in visible and infrared light reveals how the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is feeding material into its central region, igniting massive star birth and probably causing its bulge of stars to grow. The material also is fueling a black hole in the galaxy's core. A galaxy's bulge is a central, football-shaped structure composed of stars, gas, and dust.

Credit: Allan Sandage (The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington) and John Bedke (Computer Sciences Corporation and the Space Telescope Science Institute), NASA, ESA, and Reynier Peletier (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom)