M83 Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

First discovered by French Astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) is located 15 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

New generations of stars in M83 are forming in large clusters on the edges of the dark spiraling dust lanes. These young stars which are only a few million years old produce large amounts of UV light, which causes the surrounding diffuse gas clouds to glow in pinkish hydrogen light. [source: NASA]

Constellation Hydra

Distance about 15 million light-years from Earth