July 24, 2007
The night sky on your birthday is never quite the same twice — the planets shift, the constellations drift, the Moon wears a different phase.
Spiral Galaxy M83: The Southern Pinwheel
Birthday · July 24, 2007
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APOD published July 24, 2007. Credit: Robert Gendler and Stephane Guisard. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra, majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered 250 years ago, only much later was it appreciated that M83 was not a nearby gas cloud, but a barred spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way Galaxy. M83, pictured above, is a prominent member of a group of galaxies that includes Centaurus A and NGC 5253, all of which lie about 15 million light years distant. Several bright supernova explosions have been recorded in M83. An intriguing double circumnuclear ring has been discovered at the center of M83.
Image credit: Robert Gendler and Stephane Guisard