Pinwheel Galaxy

A face-on spiral about 170,000 light-years across, much larger than the Milky Way. This Hubble mosaic was the largest and most detailed galaxy picture it had made.

The picture hangs at that distance facing Earth, as large as it is on the sky; how deep the object is cannot be seen, so it is flat.

Taken by

Hubble Space Telescope

Picture spans

about 81,000 ly

From the Sun

21 million light-years

RA / Dec

210.89° / 54.30°

Credit

Image: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgements: Project Investigators for the original Hubble data: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) Image processing: Davide De Martin ( ESA / Hubble ) CFHT image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum NOAO image: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF

The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on, counterclockwise intermediate spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and was communicated that year to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.

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