Pinwheel Galaxy

Not to be confused with Cartwheel Galaxy. For other uses, see Pinwheel Galaxy (disambiguation).
Pinwheel Galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy, as taken by Hubble Space Telescope
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
ConstellationUrsa Major
Right ascension14h 03m 12.6s
Declination+54° 20′ 57″
Redshift0.000804
Heliocentric radial velocity241 ± 2 km/s
Distance20.9 ± 1.8 Mly (6.4 ± 0.5 Mpc)
Apparent magnitude (V)7.9[1]
Characteristics
TypeSAB(rs)cd
Number of stars1 trillion (1012)
Size51.91 kpc (169,300 ly)
(diameter; 25.0 mag/arcsec2 B-band isophote)[2][3]
Apparent size (V)28′.8 × 26′.9
Other designations
Messier 101, M101, NGC 5457, UGC 8981, PGC 50063, Arp 26
References: [4][5][6][7][8][9]
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Dark sky image with some objects around Pinwheel Galaxy (M 101). The quarter in the lower right shows the tail of Ursa Major with the stars Mizar, Alcor and Alkaid.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on, unbarred, and counterclockwise spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years (6.4 megaparsecs)[5] from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781[a] and was communicated that year to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.

On February 28, 2006, NASA and the European Space Agency released a very detailed image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, which was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by Hubble Space Telescope at the time.[10] The image was composed of 51 individual exposures, plus some extra ground-based photos.

  1. ^ "Messier 101". SEDS Messier Catalog. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
  2. ^ De Vaucouleurs, Gerard; De Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; Corwin, Herold G.; Buta, Ronald J.; Paturel, Georges; Fouque, Pascal (1991). Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies. Bibcode:1991rc3..book.....D.
  3. ^ NASA Content Administrator, ed. (31 May 2012). "The Pinwheel Galaxy". NASA. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  4. ^ "NED results for object MESSIER 101". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
  5. ^ a b Shappee, Benjamin; Stanek, Kris (June 2011). "A New Cepheid Distance to the Giant Spiral M101 Based on Image Subtraction of Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys Observations". Astrophysical Journal. 733 (2): 124. arXiv:1012.3747. Bibcode:2011ApJ...733..124S. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/733/2/124. S2CID 121792901.
  6. ^ R. W. Sinnott, ed. (1988). The Complete New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters by J. L. E. Dreyer. Sky Publishing Corporation / Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-933346-51-2.
  7. ^ "Distance Results for Messier 101". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. Retrieved 2010-05-01.
  8. ^ "M 101". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg. Retrieved 2009-11-29.
  9. ^ Gil de Paz, Armando; Boissier, Samuel; Madore, Barry F.; Seibert, Mark; et al. (December 2007). "The GALEX Ultraviolet Atlas of Nearby Galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 173 (2): 185–255. arXiv:astro-ph/0606440. Bibcode:2007ApJS..173..185G. doi:10.1086/516636. S2CID 119085482.
  10. ^ "Hubble's Largest Galaxy Portrait Offers a New High-Definition View". NASA. 28 February 2006. Archived from the original on 21 June 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2018.


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