In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as M51. In this image, the spiral arms have been digitally modified to unwind them using logarithms. The ordinary spiral arms form a logarithmic spiral which can be unwound digitally giving the ams a straight line appearance.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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