March 18, 1998
On the day you arrived, the Earth was spinning at a thousand miles per hour, orbiting the Sun at sixty-seven thousand.
Interstellar Dust-Bunnies of NGC 891
Birthday · March 18, 1998
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APOD published March 18, 1998. Credit: WIYN, Inc., 3.5-m WIYN Telescope. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What is going on in NGC 891? This galaxy appeared previously to be very similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy: a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge-on. However, recent high-resolution images of NGC 891's dust show unusual filamentary patterns extending well away from its Galactic disk. This interstellar dust was probably thrown out of the galactic disk toward the halo by stellar supernovae explosions. Because dust is so fragile, its appearance after surviving disk expulsion can be very telling. Newly discovered phenomena, however, sometimes appear so complex that more questions are raised than are answered.
Image credit: WIYN, Inc., 3.5-m WIYN Telescope