Categories: Where In the Universe?

Where In The Universe #96

It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Test your visual knowledge of the cosmos by naming where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. This week’s WITU challenge was submitted by UT reader Brad Jones — thanks Brad! To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below.

This is an image of two galaxies — M81 and M82, and was taken from the ground by Markus Schopfer using an 8-inch SC-Telescope and a Digital SLR. See a larger version here.

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M81 is a grand design spiral galaxy and pairs up with an irregular galaxy M82, sometimes called the “exploding Cigar.” They are actually separated by 150,000 light years. This galaxy group is the nearest galaxy group to our own local group of galaxies.

You can read a great post about M81 and M82 by Tammy Plotner here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/