NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for September 11, 2026, featured M83, the Southern Pinwheel. According to the accompanying explanation, the bright spiral galaxy lies some twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the long constellation Hydra. Dark dust lanes and blue star clusters trace its prominent spiral arms. Reddish star-forming regions scattered along those arms have suggested another nickname, the Thousand-Ruby Galaxy.

The galaxy is described as a mere 40,000 light-years across, smaller than the Milky Way, and a member of a galaxy group that includes the active galaxy Centaurus A. The explanation notes that the core of M83 is bright at x-ray energies, indicating a high concentration of neutron stars and black holes left from an intense burst of star formation. The sharp ground-based telescopic view also shows foreground stars of the Milky Way and distant background galaxies.

The image was credited to Aldo Zanetti, with authors and editors listed as Jerry Bonnell, Robert Nemiroff, Cecilia Chirenti and Keighley Rockcliffe. The page also noted that APOD's main NASA site was moving from apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod.