Subj : Daily APOD Report To : All From : Ben Ritchey Date : Wed Apr 17 2019 21:16:27 Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2019 April 17 [2] Messier 81 Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Paolo De Salvatore [4] (Zenit Observatory) Explanation: One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81 [5] . Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral [6] can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The detailed telescopic [7] view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pink starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes [8] .. Some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral [9] features though. The errant dust lanes [10] may be the lingering result of a close encounter [11] between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82 [12] . Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances [13] for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years. Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- < [14] | Archive [15] | Submissions [16] | Index [17] | Search [18] | Calendar [19] | RSS [20] | Education [21] | About APOD [22] | Discuss [23] | > [24] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [25] (MTU [26] ) & Jerry Bonnell [27] (UMCP [28] ) NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [29] . NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [30] A service of: ASD [31] at NASA [32] / GSFC [33] & Michigan Tech. U. [34] ---------- Site notes: [1] archivepix.html [2] image/1904/M81salvatore.jpg [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [4] https://www.flickr.com/photos/paolodesalvatore/ [5] https://www.universetoday.com/47054/messier-81-1/ [6] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-81 [7] https://www.flickr.com/photos/paolodesalvatore/33646408148/ [8] http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/ 1070-ssc2003-06c-Spiral-Galaxy-Messier-81 [9] http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/Academics/Astr222/Galaxies/Spiral/ spiral.html [10] ap010112.html [11] ap130925.html [12] ap120326.html [13] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994ApJ...427..628F [14] ap190416.html [15] archivepix.html [16] lib/apsubmit2015.html [17] lib/aptree.html [18] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search [19] calendar/allyears.html [20] /apod.rss [21] lib/edlinks.html [22] lib/about_apod.html [23] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=190417 [24] ap190418.html [25] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ [27] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html [28] http://www.astro.umd.edu/ [29] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [30] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html [31] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [32] https://www.nasa.gov/ [33] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ [34] http://www.mtu.edu/ --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 (Windows/32) * Origin: FIDONet - The Positronium Repository (1:393/68) .