{"id":26465,"date":"2025-04-10T05:56:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T05:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26465"},"modified":"2025-04-10T05:56:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T05:56:47","slug":"38-hours-in-the-m81-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26465","title":{"rendered":"38 Hours in the M81 Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img src='https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/image\/2504\/38h_M81-group_1024.jpeg' style='max-width:600px;' \/><\/p>\n<div>From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure with a camera and small telescope produced this cosmic photo of the M81 galaxy group. In fact, the group&#8217;s dominant galaxy M81 is near the center of the frame sporting grand spiral arms and a bright yellow core. Also known as Bode&#8217;s galaxy, M81 itself spans some 100,000 light-years. Near the top is cigar-shaped irregular galaxy M82. The pair have been locked in gravitational combat for a billion years. Gravity from each galaxy has profoundly affected the other during a series of cosmic close encounters. Their last go-round lasted about 100 million years and likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in massive star forming regions arrayed along M81&#8217;s spiral arms. M82 was left with violent star forming regions too, and colliding gas clouds so energetic that the galaxy glows in X-rays. In the next few billion years, their continuing gravitational encounters will result in a merger, and a single galaxy will remain. Another group member, NGC 3077 is below and left of the large spiral M81. Far far away, about 12 million light-years distant the M81 group galaxies are seen toward the northern constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). But in the closer foreground the wide-field image is filled with integrated flux nebulae whose faint, dusty interstellar clouds reflect starlight above the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy. via NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap250410.html\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure with a camera and small telescope produced this cosmic photo of the M81 galaxy group. In fact, the group&#8217;s dominant <a href=\"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/?p=26465\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,12],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-26465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-whatsup","tag-ifttt","tag-nasa"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26466,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26465\/revisions\/26466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/finn-family.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}