IR M63. What RU?

By Phil Plait | March 4, 2011 7:00 am

Y’know, I’ve posted a lot of really pretty and cool pictures of spiral galaxies lately, and I’ve given descriptions of how they have black holes in their cores, and how the spiral arms form, and where stars are being born, and and and.

So you know what?

Boom! There you go. [Click to galactinate it.] No fancy explanations, no expounding on the ethereal beauty of dust lanes in an infrared picture from Spitzer, no lectures on anything. Just a really, really pretty picture.

I mean, I could mention how this galaxy, M63, is nearby at only 37 million light years, and how I’ve seen it myself through my telescope. But no, I won’t do that. Nothing about the prevalent short, stubby arms — called spurs — or ring of dust circling the core. And certainly nothing on how the starlight has been subtracted from the image so all you see is warm dust.

Nope. Just the picture.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Related posts:

- Gallery: Spitzer’s greatest hits
- The Milky Way’s (almost) identical twin
- A galaxy that’s all hat and no head

CATEGORIZED UNDER: Astronomy, Pretty pictures

MORE ABOUT: M63, spiral galaxies, Spitzer

Comments (19)

Links to this Post

Sunflower Galaxy Is A Spiraling Beauty. « OMEGA-LEVEL.NET - | March 4, 2011

Messier Tidy Upper

Yes.

March 4, 2011 at 7:09 am
Messier Tidy Upper

Just the links :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_63

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canes_Venatici &

http://apod.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search

Hope that last one works – type M63 into the search box if not – and the others do too.

March 4, 2011 at 7:17 am
Larian LeQuella

Seconded yes.

March 4, 2011 at 7:24 am
kuhnigget

Looks like a cosmic ad for Hypnovision.

//obscure exploitation film references.

March 4, 2011 at 7:31 am
Erik

I’m not going to post a comment about how awesome this image is, or how awesome I think Phil is for bringing us this content. I’m certainly not going to talk about how much I wish I could see things like this with my own two eyes. Nor will I be waxing philosophical about how privileged we all are to be able to witness all this beauty in the universe.

Nope. Just a comment of thanks. =)

March 4, 2011 at 7:36 am
Carson Myers

I c wat u did thar.

March 4, 2011 at 7:38 am
Messier Tidy Upper

@ ^ Erik : LOL – & seconded.

Wish I’d thought of that!

@ 4. Kuhnigget : So .. not a hypnotoad (from Futurama) reference then?

@ #2 : D’oh! That link didn’t work.

Okay take II :

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100911.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080417.html

& http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000627.html

For more superluminous images of the Sunflower galaxy.

(Which, alas, is too low in my sky for me to have ever seen it personally.)

March 4, 2011 at 7:45 am
Chief

Love how this one seems to have the core looking like it is lower than the arms. Place something on the rim and it will “drain” down to the center.

March 4, 2011 at 7:50 am
Neeneko

Photos like this make me daydream of someday chucking it all and joining a team processing telescope data ^_^ Or at least moving somewhere without much light pollution.

March 4, 2011 at 8:53 am
Sam H

I don’t know if you still work on the HST Phil, but if you know anyone who does I have a request for them – Please make a hi-res full-colour M101-style portrait of the Sunflower galaxy with the HST before it’s decommissioned!!!! You might get some more important data on dark matter, or something (Alright, I don’t know how valuable the science that you can get out of images of galaxies like these is, and may not be worth enough to warrant taking such a look – but PLEASE make a wallpaper-class image of this galaxy!!) I’ll have another beautiful picture to stare off into space at while I pump my uplifting trance

Anyway, my comments here seem to be getting ignored as of late. If this is so, was it because of my ID comments or something else I said? If so, I’ll confirm that while I don’t agree with everything Phil says on the subject I am no ignoramus – I understand the arguments, but I’m personally reserved on how effective they are. And I’d never troll on my fav blog
But that’s an aside. PLEASE make a Hubble photo of this!!!

March 4, 2011 at 9:11 am
Larian LeQuella

Sam H, I doubt that he’s “ignoring” you, but many blogs get A LOT of comments. I’m sure he doesn’t have time to reply to them all. As a mancrush stalker, he even “ignores” me from time to time, and I think ID is for IDiots. (No offense intended, just poking fun with a popular internet meme.)

March 4, 2011 at 9:19 am
Jonathan

Beautiful.

March 4, 2011 at 9:22 am
Jon Hanford

#10 Sam H,

“….Please make a hi-res full-colour M101-style portrait of the Sunflower galaxy with the HST before it’s decommissioned!!!! You might get some more important data on dark matter, or something (Alright, I don’t know how valuable the science that you can get out of images of galaxies like these is, and may not be worth enough to warrant taking such a look….”

I totally agree!! Also, M 63 is not just a pretty, classical spiral galaxy but contains at least one tidal stream from a past (or ongoing) encounter with a dwarf galaxy. Jay GaBany has (as usual) a great image of this extremely faint feature: http://www.cosmotography.com/images/small_ngc5055.html

That feature alone might make it a tempting target for deep imaging by Hubble IMO (although Jay notes that a complex series of faint blue ‘plumes’ probably unrelated to the tidal stream exist. These areas of recent starbirth at the periphery of M 63 were noted by previous GALEX UV observations.)

We need to add this galaxy to our ‘Hubble Gotchu’ collection.

March 4, 2011 at 11:34 am
ASFalcon13

I just joined the Spitzer team a couple of months ago. I’m on the engineering side, so I typically don’t have much insight into what science targets are being selected on any given week. Sometimes I do, especially for long observations, but not always. Usually, I’ll get a long list of pointing commands with right ascensions and declinations, and it’s my job to make sure none of those violate mission rules (for instance, making sure the telescope remains behind the sun shade…exposing an infrared telescope to sunlight is generally considered a bad idea).

Every once in a while, I’ll see a photo like this come across, and I’ll think “Holy crap, when did I tell the telescope to do that?!?”

March 4, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Michael Suttkus, II

No lecture? NO LECTURE! But learning is beautiful, too!

March 4, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Sean H.

Seriously. I think I love your blog.

March 4, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Messier Tidy Upper

@ ^ Sean H. : I *know* I love this blog!

March 5, 2011 at 1:55 am
Rodolfo

I’ve been colecting pictures of galaxies and other “friends” captured by different Nasa and Esa satelites, I use them as savescreens, and I never get tired of looking the beauties nature has prepared for us. Just look up and ENJOY!!!!

March 6, 2011 at 4:30 pm