Post by glactus on Dec 1, 2008 6:05:24 GMT
The Messier 83 galaxy
Messier 83. The Southern Pinwheel, is an intermediate spiral galaxy approximately 15 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra. Magnitude is 8.2
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille discovered M83 in 1752 at the Cape of Good Hope. Charles Messier added it to his catalogue of nebulou objects in March 1781.
It is one of the closest and brightest barred spirals in the sky, making it visible with binoculars . Six Supernovae (SN 1923A, SN 1945B, SN 1950B, SN 1957D, SN 1968L and SN 1983N) have been observed in M83
On 16 June 2008 NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer project reported finding large numbers of new stars in the outer reaches of the galaxy. It had hitherto been thought that these areas lacked the materials necessary for star formation.
M83 is at the center of one of two subgroups within the Centaurus A/M83 Group, a nearby group of galaxies. Centaurus A is at the center of the other subgroup. These two groups are sometimes identified as one group and sometimes as two groups. However, the galaxies around Centaurus A and the galaxies around.M83 are physically close to each other, and both subgroups appear not to be moving relative to each other.
Credits: This is an ESO image
www.eso.org/gallery/d/4356-1/phot-24b-05.jpg