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 18
                                      [2]
                                The Leo Trio
                Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Markus Bauer [4]

Explanation: This group is popular in the northern spring. Famous as the Leo
Triplet [5] , the three magnificent galaxies gather in one field of view.
Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced
individually as NGC 3628 (left), M66 (bottom right), and M65 (top). All three
are large spiral galaxies [6]  but they tend to look dissimilar because their
galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628
[7] , also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is temptingly seen edge-on, with
obscuring dust lanes cutting across its puffy galactic plane. The disks of M66
[8]  and M65 are [9] both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure.
Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have left telltale
signs, including the tidal tails and warped [10] , inflated disk of NGC 3628
and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous view [11] of the region
spans almost two degrees (four full moons) on the sky. The field covers about
a million light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million
light-years. Of course [12] the spiky foreground stars lie within our own
Milky Way.

                      Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [24] (MTU [25] ) & Jerry Bonnell [26]
                                  (UMCP [27] )
          NASA Official:  Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [28] .
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1904/LeoTrioBauer.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] https://www.astrobin.com/users/Detoxx/
  [5] http://messier.seds.org/more/m066gr.html
  [6] http://cass.ucsd.edu/archive/public/tutorial/ Galaxies.html
  [7] ap140508.html
  [8] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2010/02/caption.htm...
  [9] http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1352...
  [10] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2001/23/caption.htm...
  [11] https://www.astrobin.com/393622/F/
  [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spi...
  [13] ap190417.html
  [14] archivepix.html
  [15] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [16] lib/aptree.html
  [17] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apo...
  [18] calendar/allyears.html
  [19] /apod.rss
  [20] lib/edlinks.html
  [21] lib/about_apod.html
  [22] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?dat...
  [23] ap190419.html
  [24] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [25] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [26] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnel...
  [27] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [28] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [29] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Priv...
  [30] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [31] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [32] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [33] http://www.mtu.edu/

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