Explanation:
Big, bright, and beautiful,
spiral galaxy M83
lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern
tip of the very long constellation
Hydra.
Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust lanes and blue star
clusters lend this galaxy its popular name of the Southern Pinwheel.
But reddish
star forming regions
that dot the sweeping arms
highlighted in
this sparkling color composite also suggest
another nickname,
The Thousand-Ruby Galaxy.
About 40,000 light-years across, M83 is a member of a group of
galaxies that includes active galaxy
Centaurus A.
The core of M83 itself is bright
at x-ray energies, showing a high
concentration of neutron stars and black holes left from
an intense burst of star formation.
The sharp image, based on archival data from the European Southern
Observatory's Wide Field Imager camera,
also features
spiky
foreground Milky Way stars and distant background
galaxies.
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