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Credit & Copyright: NASA,
ESA,
CFHT,
NOAO;
Acknowledgement - K.Kuntz (GSFC), F.Bresolin (U.Hawaii), J.Trauger (JPL), J.Mould (NOAO), Y.-H.Chu (U. Illinois)
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.
About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost
twice the size of our own Milky Way.
M101 was also one of the original
spiral nebulae
observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the
Leviathan
of Parsontown.
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.
The
sharp image shows stunning features
of the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with
background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself.
Also known as the
Pinwheel Galaxy, M101
lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation
Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.
Acknowledgement - K.Kuntz (GSFC), F.Bresolin (U.Hawaii), J.Trauger (JPL), J.Mould (NOAO), Y.-H.Chu (U. Illinois)
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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 101 - spiral galaxy
Publications with words: M 101 - spiral galaxy
See also: