                        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.

                                2022 June 23

                           Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744
                Image Credit & Copyright: Basudeb Chakrabarti

   Explanation: Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000
   light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30
   million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo but
   appears as only a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see
   the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight
   in this remarkably detailed galaxy portrait, a telescopic view that
   spans an area about the angular size of a full moon. In it, the giant
   galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old,
   cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young
   blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An
   extended arm sweeps past smaller satellite galaxy NGC 6744A at the
   lower right. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky
   Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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