Skip all navigation and go to page contentSkip top navigation and go to directorate navigationSkip top navigation and go to page navigation
National Science Foundation


Extrasolar Planets, Text Slide 2 of 18

Previous Text Slide | Next Text Slide | Index | Graphic Version

Slide Title: Where are the Known Extrasolar Planets?

Slide Image: M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra, majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered 250 years ago, only in this century was it appreciated that M83 was not a gas cloud but a barred spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way Galaxy. M83, pictured here in a recently released photograph from a Very Large Telescope, is a prominent member of a group of galaxies that includes Centaurus A and NGC 5253, all of which lie about 15 million light years distant. To date, six supernova explosions have been recorded in M83. An unusual double circumnuclear ring has recently been discovered at the center of M83 and is still being investigated.

Image Source: NASA
Website: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991206.html

Slide Source: NSF and Sara Seager


Return to Ground Astronomy Symposium.



 

Back to Top of page