The Weakest Force with Limitless Range: Gravity and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy (Chris Hunt)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4263 · IC 4278 · M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · Whirlpool Galaxy

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The Weakest Force with Limitless Range: Gravity and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

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The Weakest Force with Limitless Range: Gravity and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

There are four fundamental forces at work in the universe that govern interaction. Some are incredibly strong (like the atomic forces that keep atoms and molecules together), but the weakest of the fundamental forces is actually gravity. But gravity has a trick up its sleeve!! Despite being so weak compared to the others it has an essentially limitless range!

To me there is no more interesting display of gravity that is relatively easy to see than M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. So named for its vortex appearance with two long spiral arms, its close companion NGC 5195 appears irregular and bloblike is a smaller galaxy that is locked in a gravitational dance and can be seen at the end of one of the Whirlpool galaxy's spiral arms. Trading matter back and forth, the Whirlpool galaxy and its companion are roughly 25-31 million light-years from Earth. The smaller galaxy likely passed through M51 over the past 100 million years and severely disrupted the smaller companion galaxy and compressed and elongated the arms of the larger M51 creating incredible regions of star formation.

The Whirlpool galaxy was discovered in 1781 but was thought to be a nebula within our own Milky Way galaxy. Edwin Hubble was the first though to prove that these spiral structures were truly separate galaxies in 1924. This interacting pair continues to be widely studied and can be seen on a clear night with a good set of binoculars looking near the handle of the Big Dipper. Several supernovas have actually been observed in this distant galaxy, the last of which was observed in 2019. Many of these distant supernovas are discovered by local amateur astronomers. I will keep looking out .....

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4334764
PixInsight job	SZ1N1ND2LPMEWTUT5H8YDN5H9A3ZBBOR
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	13h29m53s.112
RA (top/left)	13h28m03s.677
RA (top/right)	13h28m07s.303
RA (bottom/right)	13h31m40s.817
RA (bottom/left)	13h31m40s.667

Dec (center)	+47°11′53″.82
Dec (top/left)	+47°37′21″.19
Dec (top/right)	+46°46′06″.66
Dec (bottom/right)	+46°46′20″.17
Dec (bottom/left)	+47°37′34″.72

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The Weakest Force with Limitless Range: Gravity and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

The Weakest Force with Limitless Range: Gravity and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

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