Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]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. 2023 April 5 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Rubin's Galaxy Image Credit: [3]NASA, [4]ESA, B. Holwerda (University of Louisville) Explanation: [5]In this Hubble Space Telescope image the bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus beyond is [6]UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way. [7]Part of an investigation to understand how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of [8]An Interesting Voyage and astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies. Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence of [9]dark matter in our universe. Tomorrow's picture: methalox __________________________________________________________________ [10]< | [11]Archive | [12]Submissions | [13]Index | [14]Search | [15]Calendar | [16]RSS | [17]Education | [18]About APOD | [19]Discuss | [20]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [21]Robert Nemiroff ([22]MTU) & [23]Jerry Bonnell ([24]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [25]Specific rights apply. [26]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [27]ASD at [28]NASA / [29]GSFC, [30]NASA Science Activation & [31]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2304/RubinsGalaxy_hst2000.jpg 3. https://www.nasa.gov/ 4. https://www.spacetelescope.org/ 5. https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2020/01/4615-Image 6. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980ApJ...238..471R/abstract 7. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017hst..prop15107H/abstract 8. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-astro-081710-102545 9. https://www.space.com/vera-rubin.html 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230404.html 11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 14. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 19. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230405 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230406.html 21. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 22. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 23. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 24. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 26. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 27. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 28. https://www.nasa.gov/ 29. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 30. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 31. http://www.mtu.edu/