Friday, February 4, 2011

APOD 3.3

The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51
An extremely beautiful sight to see in infrared. This is the perfect time for this APOD to come along as we are studying interstellar medium. This photo is shopped to dissipate the glare of the massive amounts of stars withing the galaxy, but it still is a behemoth of doom. The extremely large and swirly galaxy is only about 15,000 light years across, no big deal, but its shape and pronounced swirls are the most interesting part. The reason the image was taken was to explore how the galaxy forms stars. The interstellar medium we are studying definitely pertains to the giant laboratory that this galaxy is. This is a beautiful sight, but I wish we could explore it more.

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