                         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.

                                  2019 May 3
                                      [2]
                    Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud
            Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Team Ciel Austral [4]  -
        J. C. Canonne, N. Outters, P. Bernhard, D. Chaplain, L. Bourgon

Explanation: The Large Magellanic Cloud [5]  (LMC) is an alluring sight in
southern skies. But this deep and detailed telescopic view, over 10 months in
the making, goes beyond [6]  what is visible to most circumnavigators [7]  of
planet Earth. Spanning over 5 degrees or 10 full moons, the 4x4 panel mosaic
was constructed from 3900 frames with a total of 1,060 hours of exposure time
in both broadband and narrowband filters. The narrowband filters are designed
to transmit only light emitted by sulfur, 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 [8]
surrounding its massive, young stars [9] . Sculpted by the strong stellar
winds and ultraviolet radiation, the glowing clouds, dominated by emission
from hydrogen, are known as H II [10] (ionized hydrogen) regions. Itself
composed of many overlapping H II regions, the Tarantula Nebula [11] 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: The Da Vinci Glow

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1905/photo95cielaustral2048.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.cielaustral.com
  [5] http://www.messier.seds.org/xtra/ngc/lmc.html
  [6] http://www.cielaustral.com/galerie/photo95.htm
  [7] ap150827.html
  [8] ap051223.html
  [9] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/ image_feature_1190.html
  [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_II_region
  [11] ap060106.html
  [12] ap190502.html
  [13] archivepix.html
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  [25] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
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