An observatory in northern Chile has captured an impressive view of Messier 83, also known as the southern cogwheel spiral.
Messier 83 is an almost perfect illustration of what a spiral galaxy is supposed to have. This is because we are fortunate to see it from a virtually perfect perspective, general or frontal.
The new image was acquired with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) connected to the Víctor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in northern Chile. DECam, already fulfilled his main duty how the Dark energy survey from 2013 to 2018, it is now used for other purposes, such as looking at nearby celestial wonders.
Messier 83 is 15 million light-years away, which is really very close in terms of neighboring galaxies. The spiral is about 50,000 light-years in diameter, making it about two-fifths as large as our Milky Way, another spiral galaxy. The Southern Pinwheel, as it is also called, “probably gives a good approximation of what our Milky Way would look like to a distant alien civilization.” seconds at the U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab, which manages the CTIO program.
Six light the filters were used to do the image, highlighting specific features of the galaxy. For example, the dark channels that run through the spirals are large accumulations of dust, while red spots are regions rich in hydrogen gas, within which new stars are born. In total, the image is the product of 163 DECam exhibitions held during 11.3 hours of observation time.
If you want this image to be your wallpaper, go ahead here to download the version you choose.
The work done with DECam will report on future observations made by the new one Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is due to see the light of day later this year and will be fully operational in 2023.
“Messier 83’s observations are part of an ongoing program to produce an atlas of time-varying phenomena in nearby southern galaxies, in preparation for the Observatory’s Study of Space and Legacy Legacy. Rubin, ”said Monika Soraisam, an astronomer at the University of Illinois and principal investigator for DECam’s observations on Messier 83, explained in the NOIRLab statement.
Incredibly, the Rubin Observatory will capture 1,000 images every night, which it will do continuously for an entire decade. So get ready for the next amazing astronomy chapter, as scientists are literally creating a color film of the cosmos.