A View Toward M101
Image Credit & Copyright: Laszlo Bagi
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 galaxy. M101 was also one of the original
spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large
19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. M101 shares this modern telescopic field of view with spiky foreground stars within the Milky Way, and more distant background galaxies. The colors of the
Milky Way stars can also be found in the starlight from the large island universe. Its core is dominated by light from cool yellowish stars.
Along its grand spiral arms are the blue colors of hotter, young stars mixed with obscuring dust lanes and pinkish star forming regions. Also known as the
Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major,
about 25 million light-years away.
No comments:
Post a Comment