Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos. Each day we feature a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Today's Picture: June 26, 1995
See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
The Spiral Galaxy M100
Picture Credit: NASA, Hubble Space Telescope

Explanation: The M100 galaxy is a large spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way, containing over 100 billion stars. It is over 150 million light years away, so the light we see left when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The picture was taken in 1993 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope.

For more information see NASA Space Telescope Scientific Institute press release.

We keep an archive of previous Astronomy Pictures of the Day.
Astronomy Picture of the Day is brought to you by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell . Original material on this page is copyrighted to Robert J. Nemiroff and Jerry T. Bonnell.