Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos!
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is
featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2014 November 19
Bright Spiral Galaxy M81
Image Credit:
Subaru
Telescope
(NAOJ),
Hubble Space
Telescope;
Processing & Copyright:
Roberto Colombari &
Robert Gendler
Explanation:
One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size
to our
Milky
Way Galaxy: big, beautiful
M81.
This grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great
Bear
(
Ursa Major).
This
superbly
detailed view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue
spiral arms, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to
the
Milky Way.
Hinting at a disorderly past,
a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the
disk, to the left of the galactic center,
contrary to
M81's
other prominent
spiral features.
The errant
dust lane may be the lingering result of
a
close encounter between
M81 and its smaller companion galaxy,
M82.
Scrutiny of variable stars in
M81 has yielded one of the best
determined
distances for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years.
Tomorrow's picture: dark nebula in Cygnus
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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