#3066: Cosmic Distance Calibration

[Ponytail is standing behind a lectern, pointing with a stick towards a large screen behind her. The screen has three circular parts where two of them zoom further into a part inside the upper and largest part, a rectangular image of intergalactic space, with a light gray background. In this image there are a couple of large spiral galaxies, towards the upper left and lower right parts of the image. Additionally there are more than 30 white dots (stars or far away galaxies). There are also other unreadable labels next to many of the stars. One of the stars is in the center of a crosshair. This star has a circle around it, and inside the circle the background is darker gray. From the circle two lines go down to the next part of the image showing a round zoom-in on this star. In this zoom in, it becomes clear that there is indeed a label (showing three lines of text) beneath this crosshair star. The label is still hard to read, although not impossible, but some parts of the label are partially cut off. There is another circle around the label, with black background, with two lines going down from this to another zoom-in showing the label's three lines of text. It is now readable, albeit somewhat blurry, though even more of the text is partially cut off. The three dots below indicate where the text is not complete.]

[First zoom in:]

M106 0-06832

Distance:

23.6163 MLY (27...

[Second zoom in:]

M106 0-06...

Distance:

23.6163 MLY...

[Caption below the panel:]

Cosmology News: New telescopes are finally powerful enough to read the little labels next to stars showing how far away they are.