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 June 23 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Giant Galaxies in Pavo Image Credit & [3]Copyright: [4]Mike Selby, [5]Observatorio El Sauce Explanation: Over 500,000 light years across, [6]NGC 6872 (top right) is a truly [7]enormous barred spiral galaxy, at least 5 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. The appearance of this [8]giant galaxy's distorted and stretched out spiral arms suggests the magnificent wings of a giant bird. Of course its popular moniker is the Condor galaxy. It lies about 200 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock. Lined with [9]star-forming regions, the distorted spiral arms are due to NGC 6872's gravitational interaction with the nearby smaller [10]galaxy IC 4970, seen just above the giant galaxy's core. [11]The Pavo galaxy group's dominant giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 6876 is below and left of the soaring Condor galaxy. Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend __________________________________________________________________ [12]< | [13]Archive | [14]Submissions | [15]Index | [16]Search | [17]Calendar | [18]RSS | [19]Education | [20]About APOD | [21]Discuss | [22]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [23]Robert Nemiroff ([24]MTU) & [25]Jerry Bonnell ([26]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [27]Specific rights apply. [28]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [29]ASD at [30]NASA / [31]GSFC & [32]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2306/NGC-6872-LRGB-rev-5-crop-CDK-1000-22-May-2023.jpg 3. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 4. https://www.facebook.com/masterdarksastro/ 5. https://obstech.cl/ 6. http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9924b/ 7. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007A&A...464..155H/abstract 8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110403.html 9. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ...691.1921M/abstract 10. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/ngc6872/ 11. https://www.astroexplorer.org/details/apj296376f1 12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230622.html 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 16. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 21. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230623 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230624.html 23. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 24. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 25. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 26. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 28. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 29. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 30. https://www.nasa.gov/ 31. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 32. http://www.mtu.edu/