This star formation is fueled by gas driven dynamically into the ring by the inner oval-shaped bar-like structure.

[12] A 2009 study[13] conducted by an international team of astrophysicists revealed that the outer ring of M94 is not a closed stellar ring, as historically attributed in the literature, but a complex structure of spiral arms when viewed in mid-IR and UV.

There are several possible external events that could have led to the origin of M94's outer disk including the accretion of a satellite galaxy or the gravitational interaction with a nearby star system.

In a paper published in 2004, John Kormendy and Robert Kennicutt argued that M94 contains a prototypical pseudobulge.

Other explanations for galactic rotation curves, such as MOND, also have difficulty explaining this galaxy.

[15] This result has yet to be confirmed or accepted by other research groups, however, and has not actually been tested against the predictions of standard galaxy formation models.

[1] However, M94 is close enough that the Hubble Space Telescope can be used to resolve and measure the fluxes of the brightest individual stars within the galaxy.