Todays pic is a case of a pic being posted for sheer beauty, no other reason is really necessary when you view it.
M106 in Canes Venatici
Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial nebula was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain and later added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe -- a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries trace the striking spiral arms of M106. Seen so clearly in this beautiful image, the galaxy's bright core is also visible across the spectrum from radio to x-rays, making M106 a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies. The bright core of a Seyfert galaxy is believed to be powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.
Credit: Bernie and Jay Slotnick, Adam Block, AOP, NOAO, AURA, NSF
A higher resolution version of this pic can be found here, this is a 253K Jpeg image.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
16th Apr 03
14th Apr 03
12th Apr 03
11th Apr 03
09th Apr 03
08th Apr 03
03rd Apr 03
M106 in Canes Venatici
Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial nebula was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain and later added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe -- a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries trace the striking spiral arms of M106. Seen so clearly in this beautiful image, the galaxy's bright core is also visible across the spectrum from radio to x-rays, making M106 a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies. The bright core of a Seyfert galaxy is believed to be powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.
Credit: Bernie and Jay Slotnick, Adam Block, AOP, NOAO, AURA, NSF
A higher resolution version of this pic can be found here, this is a 253K Jpeg image.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
16th Apr 03
14th Apr 03
12th Apr 03
11th Apr 03
09th Apr 03
08th Apr 03
03rd Apr 03
