Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  IC 783  ·  M 100  ·  NGC 4312  ·  NGC 4321  ·  NGC 4323  ·  NGC 4328
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Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100, Scott Tucker
Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100
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Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100

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Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100, Scott Tucker
Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100
Powered byPixInsight

Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100

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The dwarf planet Ceres, largest object in the asteroid belt, appeared to pass in front of spiral galaxy M100 in Virgo on March 26th, 2023.  The transit was in progress when it got dark in Arizona, but M100 was perfectly placed to image from twilight to twilight, so this shows 8 hours of Ceres' orbital motion.  Ceres was about 150 million miles away, or 13.3 light-minutes.  M100 on the other hand is 52 million light *years* away.  Those photons traveled 27.3 trillion minutes through space just to get obstructed by some big asteroid in the last 13 minutes.

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Dwarf Planet Ceres Passing in Front of M100, Scott Tucker