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Credit & Copyright: M. Neeser
(Univ.-Sternwarte Munchen),
P. Barthel (Kapteyn Astron. Institute),
H. Heyer, H. Boffin (ESO),
ESO
Explanation:
When morning twilight came to the
Paranal Observatory in Chile,
astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their
search for faint
quasars, billions of
light-years away.
And just for a moment, they used
Very Large Telescopes
at the European Southern Observatory to appreciate the beauty of
the nearby Universe.
One result was
this stunning view
of beautiful spiral galaxy M66,
a mere 35 million light-years away.
About 100 thousand light-years across with striking dust lanes
and bright star clusters along sweeping spiral arms,
M66 is well known to astronomers as a
member of the Leo Triplet
of galaxies.
Gravitational interactions with its
neighborhood
galaxies
have likely influenced the shape of dusty spiral M66.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy - dust
Publications with words: spiral galaxy - dust
See also: