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Credit & Copyright: NASA
Explanation:
Majestic on a truly cosmic scale,
M100 is appropriately known as a
Grand Design spiral galaxy.
A large galaxy of over 100 billion or so stars with
well defined spiral arms,
it is similar to our own Milky Way.
One of the brightest members of
the Virgo Cluster of galaxies , M100 (alias NGC 4321) is
56 million light-years distant in the spring constellation of
Coma Berenices.
This Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region
of M100 was made in 1993 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
It reveals the
bright blue star clusters
and intricate
winding dust lanes
which are hallmarks of this
class of galaxies.
Studies of
stars in M100 have
recently played an important role
in determining the
size and age of the Universe.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: M 100 - spiral galaxy
Publications with words: M 100 - spiral galaxy
See also: