' Starstruck '

...
I have written before of my 'love' for Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The images they send to my inbox every day continually amaze me. Not to mention their years of archived photos, explanatory text, and abundant links to more photos and information within their domain and across the web. The site truly is 'most helpful'.



Today's image, for example, is a fantastic look at "47 Tuc: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars".

"...the dense cluster is made up of several million stars in a volume only about 120 light-years across." They also note the light we see in this image took 13,000 years to reach us. Several million stars clustered in an area incredibly small (relatively speaking..!!) far from us in the Universe.




A link in the text for today's picture leads to a broader view of this cluster 'near' the Small Cloud of Magellan. Of course, they are not really 'near' each other but appear so only in two dimensions, as we see them from Earth. The Small Cloud of Magellan is actually much farther distant from us.






Also a today's pic/page (first photo above) is a link to a picture and discussion of "exotic x-ray binary star systems" that are found in 47 Tuc










If you have a pair of eyeballs (or even one), the imagination to think beyond your immediate surroundings, and the curiosity to wonder what is 'out there' ...you will find much to educate and amaze you at Astronomy Picture of the Day.


...tom...
.