The
spiral galaxy Messier 83 glows with the light of billions of stars as a smaller
look-alike of our Milky Way, as spotted by ESO's Wide Field Imager at the La
Silla observatory in Chile.
Also
known as the Southern Pinwheel, Messier 83 lies about 15 million light-years
away toward the Hydra constellation. Ruby red lights in the spiral
arms represent huge clouds of glowing hydrogen gas, ionized by ultraviolet
radiation from newborn stars. The older yellow stars sit near the galaxy's
central hub, and darker winding dust streams weave throughout the galaxy arms.
X-ray
observations of the heart of the galaxy show a giant furnace working overtime
to produce stars within temperatures of 12.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (7
million degrees Celsius).Yet the galaxy also commonly contains
supernovae that mark dying stars.
— ESO and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: ESO
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