                  APOD: 2018 January 19 - Clouds in the LMC

                         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.

                                2018 January 19
                                      [2]
                              Clouds in the LMC
      Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Josep Drudis [4] , Don Goldman [5]

Explanation: An alluring sight [6]  in southern skies, the Large Magellanic
Cloud [7]  (LMC) is seen in this deep and detailed telescopic mosaic [8] .
Recorded with broadband and narrowband filters, the scene spans some 5 degrees
or 10 full moons. The narrowband filters are designed to transmit only light
emitted by hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Ionized by energetic starlight, the
atoms emit their characteristic light as electrons are recaptured and the
atoms transition to a lower energy state. As a result, in this image the LMC
seems covered with its own clouds of ionized gas [9] surrounding its massive,
young stars [10] . Sculpted by the strong stellar winds and ultraviolet
radiation, the glowing clouds, dominated by emission from hydrogen, are known
as H II [11] (ionized hydrogen) regions. Itself composed of many overlapping H
II regions, the Tarantula Nebula [12] is the large star forming region at the
left. The largest satellite of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC is about 15,000
light-years across and lies a mere 160,000 light-years away toward the
constellation Dorado.

                    Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend [13]

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  [2] image/1801/LMC_RGBNB-Don-Josep5-Cc2048.jpg
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  [4] http://www.astrodrudis.com/
  [5] http://astrodonimaging.com/
  [6] ap150827.html
  [7] http://www.messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/lmc.html
  [8] https://astrodrudis.com/ large-magellanic-cloud-nebulous-systems/
  [9] ap051223.html
  [10] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/ image_feature_1190.html
  [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_II_region
  [12] ap060106.html
  [13] ap180120.html
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  [15] archivepix.html
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