November 6, 2001
In the time it took you to read this, the Earth moved another thousand miles through space. You are not standing still. You never have been.
In the Center of Spiral Galaxy M83
Birthday · November 6, 2001
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published November 6, 2001. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy M83? Just about everything, from the looks of it. M83, visible in the inset image on the upper left, is one of the closest spiral galaxies to our own Milky Way Galaxy and from a distance of 15 million light-years, appears to be relatively normal. Zooming in on M83's nucleus with the latest telescopes, however, shows the center to be an energetic and busy place. Visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope are bright, newly formed stars and giant lanes of dark dust. An image with similar perspective from the Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the region is also rich in very hot gas and small bright sources. Observations with the large ground-based VLT telescopes show the very center likely has two separate nuclei.