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Astronomy Picture of the Day - IC 2574: Coddington's Nebula
NASA ^ | 19 Feb, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Dane Vetter

Posted on 02/19/2026 11:50:16 AM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In fact, dwarf galaxy IC 2574 shows clear evidence of intense star forming activity in its telltale reddish regions of glowing hydrogen gas. Just as in spiral galaxies, the turbulent star-forming regions in IC 2574 are churned by stellar winds and supernova explosions spewing material into the galaxy's interstellar medium and triggering further star formation. A mere 12 million light-years distant, IC 2574 is part of the M81 group of galaxies, seen toward the northern constellation Ursa Major. Also known as Coddington's Nebula, the faint but intriguing island universe is about 50,000 light-years across, discovered by American astronomer Edwin Coddington in 1898.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: aopd; nasa
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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.

1 posted on 02/19/2026 11:50:16 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 02/19/2026 11:50:48 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; ...
Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

3 posted on 02/19/2026 11:51:37 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

That star formation is…intense!


4 posted on 02/19/2026 11:57:14 AM PST by NavyShoe
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To: MtnClimber
The universe is intense! Like 93 billion light years - more than two football fields long.

Oh and, Ping!

5 posted on 02/19/2026 12:06:02 PM PST by SkyDancer ( ~ Am Yisrael Chai ~)
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To: MtnClimber

“Small, irregular galaxies”

Don’t you listen to them!

You are just as good as any of those other galaxies!


6 posted on 02/19/2026 12:11:43 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer” )
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To: blueunicorn6; MtnClimber
“Small, irregular galaxies”

Miralax can fix that irregularity. Heh. :-)

7 posted on 02/19/2026 2:13:24 PM PST by AFB-XYZ (( We have two options: 1. Stand up, or 2. Bend over))
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To: AFB-XYZ
Miralax can fix that irregularity.


8 posted on 02/19/2026 2:43:54 PM PST by Deaf and Discerning
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