Posted on 11/11/2025 11:49:24 AM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. The grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major). This superbly detailed image reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, tell tale pinkish star forming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to the Milky Way. Hinting at a disorderly past, a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the disk, to the left of the galactic center, contrary to M81's other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lane may be the lingering result of a close encounter between between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years. M81's dwarf companion galaxy Holmberg IX can be seen just above the large spiral.
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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔
Wow - colorful
And to think that we’re the only ones in the universe?
Only a few more billions and billions and billions of pictures to go ... thanks for those.
Sun unleashes biggest flare of the year, northern lights could dance across Southeast sky Tuesday
A severe solar storm could produce northern lights across as far south as Alabama and Northern California. Forecasters with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center say the X5.1 solar flare on Tuesday marks the 6th largest of solar cycle and possibly among the top 39 flares in the modern space age. A rare Severe (level 4 out of 5) Geomagnetic Storm Watch is in place through Wednesday.
By Emilee Speck, Senior Content Editor
Nice.
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