File:Ghostly galaxies above the VLT (potw2216a).tif
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Summary[edit]
DescriptionGhostly galaxies above the VLT (potw2216a).tif |
English: Floating in the sky above two of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) Auxiliary Telescopes are a pair of ethereal shapes. These are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — two of the 50 or so satellite galaxies that orbit our more massive Milky Way.Despite being small compared to the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds still contain billions of stars. The Large Magellanic Cloud, in the bottom-right of the image, has a diameter of 14 000 light-years, and the Small Magellanic Cloud in the top-centre is 7000 light-years across. At distances of about 160 000 light-years and 200 000 light-years respectively these satellite galaxies are much closer to the Milky Way than our nearest major galaxy, Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away, making them some of our closest neighbours.The faint red emission in the sky is called airglow, and it's light naturally emitted by atoms and molecules high up in the atmosphere, oxygen in this case.These ghostly galaxies can only be seen in the southern hemisphere, in skies that are unpolluted by light from cities. This is one of the reasons that ESO operates the VLT in the remote Chilean Atacama Desert — so that we can study such beguiling objects as the Magellanic Clouds. |
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Date | Taken in 2022 | ||
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Author | ESO/ M. Zamani | ||
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Licensing[edit]
This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
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This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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current | 14:25, 20 August 2023 | 4,795 × 7,000 (192.09 MB) | OptimusPrimeBot (talk | contribs) | #Spacemedia - Upload of https://cdn.eso.org/images/original/potw2216a.tif via Commons:Spacemedia |
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Exposure time | 20/1 sec (20) |
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F-number | f/1.7999999993294 |
ISO speed rating | 10,000 |
Date and time of data generation | 2019:07:05 06:34: |
Width | 4,795 px |
Height | 7,000 px |
Bits per component |
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Compression scheme | Uncompressed |
Pixel composition | RGB |
Image data location | 23,336 |
Orientation | Normal |
Number of components | 3 |
Number of rows per strip | 7,000 |
Bytes per compressed strip | 201,390,000 |
Horizontal resolution | 300 dpi |
Vertical resolution | 300 dpi |
Data arrangement | chunky format |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Windows) |
File change date and time | 16:36, 11 November 2019 |
Exif version | 2.3 |
Date and time of digitizing | 2019:07:05 06:34: |
Color space | Uncalibrated |