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. 2024 December 13 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. M51: Tidal Streams and H-alpha Cliffs Image Credit & [3]Copyright: [4]The Deep Sky Collective - Tim Schaeffer, Carl Björk, Steeve Body, Fabian Neyer, Aki Jain, Ryan Wierckx, Paul Kent, Brian Valente, Antoine & Dalia Grelin, Nicolas Puig, Stephen Guberski, Mike Hamende, Julian Shapiro, John Dziuba, Mikhail Vasilev, Bogdan Borz, Adrien Keijzer Explanation: An intriguing pair of interacting galaxies, M51 is [5]the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the [6]original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with whirlpool-like spiral structure seen nearly face-on is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its [7]spiral arms and dust lanes sweep in front of its smaller companion galaxy, [8]NGC 5195. Some 31 million light-years distant, within the boundaries of the well-trained constellation [9]Canes Venatici, M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the eye in direct telescopic views. [10]But this remarkably deep image shows off stunning details of the galaxy pair's striking colors and fainter [11]tidal streams. The image includes extensive narrowband data to highlight a vast reddish cloud of ionized hydrogen gas recently [12]discovered in the M51 system and known to some as the [13]H-alpha cliffs. Foreground dust clouds in the Milky Way and distant background galaxies are captured in the wide-field view. A continuing [14]collaboration of astro-imagers using telescopes on planet Earth assembled over 3 weeks of exposure time to create this evolving portrait of M51. Watch: [15]The 2024 Geminid Meteor Shower Tomorrow's picture: deep diving __________________________________________________________________ [16]< | [17]Archive | [18]Submissions | [19]Index | [20]Search | [21]Calendar | [22]RSS | [23]Education | [24]About APOD | [25]Discuss | [26]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [27]Robert Nemiroff ([28]MTU) & [29]Jerry Bonnell ([30]UMCP) NASA Official: Amber Straughn [31]Specific rights apply. [32]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [33]ASD at [34]NASA / [35]GSFC, [36]NASA Science Activation & [37]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2412/M51_HaLRGB_APOD2048.jpg 3. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 4. https://deepskycollective.com/home 5. http://messier.obspm.fr/m/m051.html 6. http://messier.seds.org/more/m051_rosse.html 7. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-51-the-whirlpool-galaxy 8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130831.html 9. http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/cvn/index.html 10. https://www.astrobin.com/5nb17v/ 11. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ApJ...800L...3W/abstract 12. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.01699 13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-alpha 14. https://deepskycollective.com/gallery 15. https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-geminid-meteor-shower/ 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241212.html 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 20. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 24. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 25. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=241213 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241214.html 27. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 28. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 29. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 30. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 31. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 32. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 33. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 34. https://www.nasa.gov/ 35. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 36. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 37. http://www.mtu.edu/