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Picture of the day -
February 25, 2006
The Whirlpool Galaxy
Photo courtesy of NASA.
Today's picture features one of the most recognizable objects in the universe -
the Whirlpool Galaxy - also known as Messier Object 51. On October 13,
1773, the famous astronomer Charles Messier was observing a comet when he noticed a
"very faint nebula, without stars". Of course it was later determined that this
"faint nebula" was actually a very large and very bright galaxy.
At a mere 30 million
light years from
earth, M51
isn't very far away by astronomical standards. It is also a whopping 60 million
light years across! These two factors make the Whirlpool Galaxy one of the
brightest and easiest-to-see galaxies in the night sky. In fact, it can be seen
very easily simply by looking toward the constellation Canes Venatici
with a good pair of binoculars!
This amazing image of the Whirlpool Galaxy was digitally produced by combining two separate
images, one taken with Kitt Peak National Observatory's 0.9 meter telescope and
the other with the
Hubble
Space Telescope.
Their immense sizes and the mind-boggling number of stars, planets and other
objects contained in each one of them makes the galaxies among the most
interesting things to look for on a dark, clear night. And when it comes to the
photogenic Whirlpool Galaxy you don't even need a
telescope -
but you will see a lot more detail if you use one!
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