Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5477
M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy, Jan Sjoerd de Vries
M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy
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M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy

M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy, Jan Sjoerd de Vries
M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy
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M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy

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Description

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy ~21 million light-years (~6.4 megaparsecs) away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. M101 is a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years. By comparison, the Milky Way has a diameter of 258,000 light years. It has around a trillion stars, twice the number in the Milky Way. It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.

M101 has a high population of H II regions, many of which are very large and bright. In a 1990 study, 1264 H II regions were cataloged in the galaxy. Three are prominent enough to receive New General Catalogue numbers - NGC 5461, NGC 5462, and NGC 5471.

M101 is asymmetrical due to the tidal forces from interactions with its companion galaxies. These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101's spiral arms that can be detected in ultraviolet images.

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M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy, Jan Sjoerd de Vries