                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2021 March 20

                                The Leo Trio
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Francis Bozon

   Explanation: This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around
   the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo
   Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent
   constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd
   pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be
   introduced individually as NGC 3628 (right), M66 (upper left), and M65
   (bottom). All three are large spiral galaxies but tend to look
   dissimilar, because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles
   to our line of sight. NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is
   temptingly seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across its
   puffy galactic plane. The disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough
   to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between
   galaxies in the group have left telltale signs, including the tidal
   tails and warped, inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral
   arms of M66. This gorgeous view of the region spans over 1 degree (two
   full moons) on the sky in a frame that covers over half a million
   light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million light-years.
   Of course the spiky foreground stars lie well within our own Milky Way.

                       Tomorrow's picture: antikythera
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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