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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.

                               2025 January 16

                         M83: The Southern Pinwheel
                Image Credit: CTIO, NOIRLab, DOE, NSF, AURA;
   Processing: T. A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage/NOIRLab), D. de Martin &
                             M. Zamani (NOIRLab)

   Explanation: Beautiful and bright spiral galaxy M83 lies a some 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. Still, reddish star forming regions that dot this cosmic
   pinwheel's spiral arms have suggested another nickname, the
   Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. A mere 40,000 light-years across, smaller than
   the Milky Way, 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 color
   image also features spiky foreground Milky Way stars and distant
   background galaxies. The image data was captured with the Dark Energy
   Camera and Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American
   Observatory.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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