APOD: 2026 September 11 – M83: The Southern Pinwheel
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APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 11 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD 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. M83: The Southern […]
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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.
Explanation: Beautiful and bright spiral galaxy M83 lies 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, groundbased telescopic view also features foreground Milky Way stars and distant background galaxies.
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Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 September 10 – LDN 1295: The Giraffe Nebula