The Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major: Wide-field view | Digitized Sky Survey 2

The Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major: Wide-field view | Digitized Sky Survey 2

This two-color image shows 3.7 x 2.7 degrees of the surroundings around the Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 101 (M101). It was composed from Digitized Sky Survey 2 images.

Distance from Earth: 25 million light-years 

The giant spiral disk of stars, dust, and gas is 170,000 light-years across—nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Astronomers estimate that M101 contains at least one trillion stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulas. These nebulas are areas of intense star formation within giant molecular hydrogen clouds. Brilliant, young clusters of hot, blue, newborn stars trace out the spiral arms.

Pierre Méchain, one of Charles Messier’s colleagues, discovered the Pinwheel galaxy in 1781. Located in the constellation Ursa Major, M101 has an apparent magnitude of 7.9. It can be spotted through a small telescope and is most easily observed during June.

The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a ground-based imaging survey of the entire sky in several colors of light produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute through its Guide Star Survey group.

Credit: ESA/Hubble and Digitized Sky Survey 2
Acknowledgements: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
Release Date: Feb. 28, 2006

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