Astronomy Picture for Today

Nasa ^ | 12/22/2005 | DG

[HOTTIEBOY]

Andromeda Island Universe Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler Explanation: The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, a bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, gorgeous blue spiral arms and star clusters are recorded in this stunning telescopic digital mosaic with a cumulative exposure of over 90 hours. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept only 80 years ago. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" -- distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.

[HOTTIEBOY]

This is the APFT for yesterday. Sorry, my server was down yesterday. Construction crew dug up my cable. Click on the link to show archive and follow very intreresting hyperlinks. Good day to all.

[HOTTIEBOY]

Astronomy Picture for Today



PING


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[Michael Goldsberry]

Ain't she beautiful!

[voletti]

Can see the stars for sure, where are the angels though?

[HOTTIEBOY]

What's better is to look at her through a good scope. It is still not as good as this picture. Of course, this is a mosaic of allot of pics.

[Gay State Conservative]

And to think that so many democRATS actually believe that there is no God.

[HOTTIEBOY]

One cannot imagine the grand size and scale of this.
Billions of stars make up this galaxy. With that, there are billions and billions of galaxies out there. The human brain is not capable of imagining numbers and size that big.
Out of the billions of galaxies, ours is just one. And out of the billions of stars that reside in these galaxies, our Sun is just one star.

[HOTTIEBOY]

M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two million light-years away Traveling at the speed of light(6 trillion miles per hour) It would take you 2 million years to get there. And, it is the closest spiral galaxy to us. (Sagitarius Dwarf and Large Megellan Cloud are closer but irregular)

[saganite]

What's with the billions and billions shtick? You're stealing my lines!