Search results
May 31, 2013 · The Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 101 (M101) and NGC 5457, is one of the best known spiral galaxies in the night sky. M101 is a grand design spiral galaxy (a spiral galaxy with prominent and well-defined spiral arms) located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear.
Messier 101 (also NGC 5457) lies approximately 21 million light-years from Earth and is measured at an enormous 170,000 light across. This massive grand spiral design galaxy is more than double the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble.
Nov 25, 2019 · The Pinwheel galaxy was the 101 th entry in the catalogue and was therefore dubbed Messier 101 or M101. Though strikingly large in comparison to the Milky Way, the Pinwheel galaxy is very faint due to its long distance.
Apr 6, 2023 · 6 April 2023 Mark Armstrong. Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major, is a great spiral galaxy of the ‘grand design’ style. Image: Patrick Gilliland. You can count on the fingers of one hand the galaxies that rival, let alone are superior in the northern sky to Messier 101 (NGC 5457), the awesome and dominant Pinwheel Galaxy.
Jun 18, 2018 · This animation shows the Messier 101 (Pinwheel) Galaxy, with simulated rotation, in visible, then infrared, then X-ray, and finally all three combined. M101 is a comparable in size to the Milky Way. The disk is 100 billion solar masses, and the central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.
Apr 15, 2011 · 2011 April 15. Messier 101. Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive ESA NASA Processing and additional imaging Robert Gendler. Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least .
