|
Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler
Explanation:
Big, bright, and beautiful,
spiral galaxy M83
lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern
tip of the very long constellation
Hydra.
Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust lanes and blue star
clusters lend this galaxy its popular name, The Southern Pinwheel.
But reddish
star forming regions
that dot the sweeping arms highlighted in this sparkling
color composite also suggest another nickname,
The Thousand-Ruby Galaxy.
About 40,000 light-years across, M83 is a member of a group of
galaxies that includes active galaxy
Centaurus A.
In fact, the core of M83 itself is bright
at x-ray energies, showing a high
concentration of neutron stars and black holes left from
an intense burst of star formation.
This sharp composite color image also features
spiky
foreground Milky Way stars and distant background
galaxies.
The image data was taken from the Subaru Telescope,
the European Southern Observatory's Wide Field
Imager camera,
and the Hubble Legacy Archive.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy
Publications with words: spiral galaxy
See also: