The European Southern Observatory just released a new image of the spiral galaxy M83, and it's a pretty cool shot:
[Click to embiggen, or go here to get access to monstrously bigger images, including wallpapers.] M83 is pretty close to us, if you happen to think 15 million light years is close. I'm an astronomer, so yeah, I consider 150 quintillion kilometers -- that's 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers, or 90 quintillion miles -- practically next door in galactic terms. This image is fascinating. It was taken with the ridiculously huge 8 meter Very Large Telescope in Chile, and is in the infrared at a wavelength of 2.2 microns, about three times the wavelength of the reddest light your eye can see. That turns out to be important! Galaxies like M83, and our Milky Way for that matter, are littered with huge clouds of dust. These aren't like the clumpy bunnies you find ...
