Behold the brilliance of this cosmic snapshot obtained via the 520-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) instrument engineered by the US Department of Energy and installed on the Victor M. Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.
Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA. Acknowledgment: M. Soraisam (University of Illinois). Image processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin
A program run by the NSF’s NOIRLab, DECam’s primary objective had been to map the structures of hundreds of millions of galaxies between 2013-2019 to hopefully glean new data on the mysterious phenomenon known as dark energy. This invisible force remains an enigma to astrophycists who believe it to be a guiding hand in accelerating the rate of expansion in the universe.
Last Updated:
Stunning Southern Pinwheel Galaxy Captured By Dark Energy Camera In All Its Glory; Watch
With the help of DECam, an observatory in northern Chile captured a stunning view of Messier 83, also known as the Spiral of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy.
With the help of Dark Energy Camera (DECam), an observatory in northern Chile captured a stunning view of Messier 83, also known as the Spiral of the Southern Pinwheel. Astro Data Archive at the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) Program at NSF s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research (NOIR) Lab captured the image of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, which was discovered in 1752 by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. The image released on YouTube also gives a hint on how our own Milky Way Galaxy may look from afar.
Astronomers have captured a stunning image of one of the Milky Way’s neighboring spiral galaxies. The portrait was taken using an instrument that was created to hunt down dark energy – a force that may be accelerating the expansion of the universe.
Dark Energy Camera Captures Stunning Picture of Southern Pinwheel Galaxy in All its Glory
FOLLOW US ON:
With the help of Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Astro Data Archive at the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) Program at NSF s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research (NOIR) Lab have captured a spectacular picture of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. Located 15 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Hydra, the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, also known as the Messier 83, was discovered in 1752 by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. The photograph was captured by a DECam on a Victor M Blanco 4 metre Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
The Spiral of the Southern Pinwheel
A camera designed to reveal the deepest secrets of our Universe captures the Southern Pinwheel galaxy in glorious detail
CosmoView Episode 21: The Spiral of the Southern Pinwheel
CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA
Acknowledgment: M. Soraisam (University of Illinois)
Image processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin
Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, Messier 83 (or NGC 5236) is a stunning face-on spiral galaxy located about 15 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydra. Its spiral arms are lined with dark lanes of dust and peppered with reddish, star-forming clouds of hydrogen gas. One of the deepest images ever taken of the Southern Pinwheel (combining more than 11 hours of exposure time), this view was captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was built by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and is mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-Americ