Image of the Day : Purple Haze All in My Eyes
Purple Haze All in My EyesA blue and pink pinwheel represents the center of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, seen in a composite image by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array in New Mexico.
The Very Large Array’s red view of radio emissions shows gaseous hydrogen atoms — raw ingredients for stars that make up the galaxy’s extended arms.The Galaxy Evolution Explorer’s ultraviolet view captured the blue and green of the galaxy’s farthest-flung nurseries of young stars, up to 140,000 light-years from the center.
The composite view of the galaxy, also known as M83, demonstrates how the baby star clusters match up with the extended arms of hydrogen gas. That leads astronomers to speculate that the young stars may have formed under conditions resembling the early universe, when heavier elements and dust did not exist.
