Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and W. P. Blair (JHU) et al.
Explanation: 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 by the Hubble Space Telescope in a recently released image, 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 of M83.
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