A look at the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)
September 8th 2010 00:01
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The beautiful Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is perhaps one of the best examples of geometric design. It is one of the best structured spiral galaxies with in our neighbourhood. The distance to M101 is 23 million light-years away in the constellationUrsa Major.
Aptly named the Pinwheel Galaxy is 170,000 light-years across or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way M101 is a comparatively large galaxy much larger than our Milky Way.
M101 has a diameter of 170,000 light-years it is almost twice the size of the Milky Way. It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.
M101 has five companion galaxies NGC 5204, NGC 5474, NGC 5477, NGC 5585, and Holmberg IV.
The effect of these close neighbors may have influenced the design structure of the this spiral galaxy.
The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is seen edge on at our vantage point we can see it as though we looking down on the full face of the galaxy.
The outer spirals arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulae. Certainly one impressive looking galaxy, M101 can be seen with a good set of binoculars.
image NASA/ESA
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
When we look at the distances involved it just makes you think how insignificant we are,nature is a very creative artist.