The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy: Messier 83 in Hydra | MPG/ESO Telescope

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy: Messier 83 in Hydra | MPG/ESO Telescope

These images show an object made of two spiral arms connected at the center, in shades of blue against a black background, with bright pink smudges sprinkled throughout. The object is brightest at the center and along the spiral arms. Wispy dark lanes block some of the light along the spiral arms.

These images show the Messier 83 (M83) galaxy, also known as the Southern Pinwheel. The M83 galaxy is in visible light, captured by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO Telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

If our Milky Way were to resemble this one, we certainly would be proud of our home! The beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 83 (M83) is located in the southern constellation Hydra (the Water Snake) and is known as NGC 5236, too. Its distance is about 15 million light-years—about twice as small as the Milky Way.

M83 is one of the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxies in the sky and is visible with binoculars. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille discovered M83 on February 17, 1752, at the Cape of Good Hope.

Learn about MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope: https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/lasilla/mpg22/

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Dates: Sept. 2, 2008 and Oct. 5, 2026

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