The picture above depicts the spiral Andromeda, which is the closest large spiral to the Earth, although it is still 2.5 million light years away.The picture was taken on August 1st, 2013, and the moon is nearly full. To the naked eye, one would only see the moon in this picture and at most a fuzzy patch, which is Andromeda because its surface brightness is so low. However, with NASA's technology the spiral can clearly be seen. Another spiral is also visible in the distance below Andromeda, and I wonder both how far away compared to the astounding distance between Andromeda and Earth and the name of the spiral.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130801.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130801.html
I was about to choose this picture as well because it is beautiful and it happens to have the moon in it. Also I found it interesting how the moon, Andromeda, and the other spiral look lined up in this picture. This really seems to show how technology has helped us understand about outer space.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photo. This reading is pretty advanced, but it explains a little bit how we can judge distance of galaxies:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-astronomers-measur