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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.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Spiral Galaxy M83

Explanation: Long winding spiral arms are clearly evident on this spectacular picture of the spiral galaxy M83. The blue color of the spiral arms is caused by the relatively large fraction of young blue stars there. Dark dust lanes are mixed in with the stars and trace the spiral structure of the galaxy. This galaxy contains many billions of stars, and its light took many millions of years to reach us. Our own Milky Way Galaxy would appear similar to this if viewed from M 83! This picture is number eight on a publicly posted list of images from the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT).

Date September 12, 1995
Credit Credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope photograph by David Malin
Copyright: Anglo-Australian Telescope Board
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.