Milky Way over Devils Tower

What happened to Devil Tower? A leading hypothesis is that the rock monolith in Wyoming is a hardened lava plume that never reached the surface to become a volcano. The lighter rock that once surrounded the dense volcanic neck has eroded away, leaving the dramatic tower. The dense rock is known by Native Americans as Bear's Lodge and Great Gray Horn. The central band of the Milky Way is high above the sky. There are dark strands of the Pipe Nebula to the right of the tower. Green grass and trees line the foreground, while clouds overlook the tower. mountaineers are allowed to climbDevils Tower

Page 2

Explanation: Spiral arms seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so. That's about the size of our own Milky Way. M96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group. Background galaxies and smaller Leo I group members can be found by examining the picture. The most intriguing one is itself a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge on behind the outer spiral arm near the 1 o'clock position from center. Its bright central bulge cut by its own dark dust clouds, the edge-on background spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size of M96. If that background galaxy is similar in actual size to M96, then it would be about 5 times farther away.