                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         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 September 27
                                      [2]
                            M33: Triangulum Galaxy
      Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Christoph Kaltseis [4] , CEDIC [5]

Explanation: The small, northern constellation Triangulum [6] harbors this
magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel
Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy [7] . M33 is over 50,000 light-years in
diameter, third largest in the Local Group [8]  of galaxies after the
Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years
from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda
Galaxy and astronomers [9] in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular
views of each other's grand spiral star systems. As for [10]  the view from
planet Earth, this sharp image [11] shows off M33's blue star clusters and
pinkish star forming [12]  regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral
arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 [13]  is the brightest star forming
region, seen here at about the 7 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like
M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this
nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing [14] the distance scale [15]
 of the Universe.

                      Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1809/M33_15x480s_CDK14_D810A_ps13-ap.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.christoph-kaltseis.com/
  [5] http://www.cedic.at/en/cedic.php
  [6] http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/tri/index.html
  [7] http://messier.seds.org/m/m033.html
  [8] http://atlasoftheuniverse.com/localgr.html
  [9] http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph?papernum=0506609
  [10] ap130926.html
  [11] http://www.cedic.at/apfr/
  [12] ap091017.html
  [13] http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/ 2003/30/
  [14] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ bib_query?1926ApJ....63..236H
  [15] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/ debate96.html
  [16] ap180926.html
  [17] archivepix.html
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  [26] ap180928.html
  [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [28] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [29] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
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