The stunning galaxy M83. Credit: ESO

My first press release for the European Southern Observatory has now been released. It accompanies what is, of course, the real interest in the story – a fantastic new image from the observatory’s Wild Field Imager camera. It shows the stunning spiral galaxy M83, arguably one of the most beautiful galaxies in Messier’s famous catalogue of deep sky objects. Here’s a snippet from the press release:

This dramatic image of the galaxy Messier 83 was captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, located high in the dry desert mountains of the Chilean Atacama Desert. Messier 83 lies roughly 15 million light-years away towards the huge southern constellation of Hydra (the sea serpent). It stretches over 40 000 light-years, making it roughly 2.5 times smaller than our own Milky Way. However, in some respects, Messier 83 is quite similar to our own galaxy. Both the Milky Way and Messier 83 possess a bar across their galactic nucleus, the dense spherical conglomeration of stars seen at the centre of the galaxies.

You can read the full press release and download a hugggeeee version of the image here.