                        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 December 22

                     NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

   Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island
   universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million
   light-years away toward the faint but heated constellation Fornax, NGC
   1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax Cluster of
   galaxies. This impressively sharp color image shows the intense,
   reddish star forming regions near the ends of central bar and along the
   spiral arms, with details of the obscuring dust lanes cutting across
   the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole.
   Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the
   galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom
   and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.

                     Tomorrow's picture: northern Saturn
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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