M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy)

  • Released Monday, June 18, 2018
  • Updated Tuesday, October 16, 2018 at 10:03AM
  • ID: 30969

M101 is a comparable in size to the Milky Way. The disk is 100 billion solar masses, and the central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses. M101 is rich is pinkish star forming regions, many of which are very large and bright. Unlike most spiral galaxies, M101's spiral shape is notably asymmetrical. This is 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.


Credits

Please give credit for this item to:

Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana), and STScI


Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

Spitzer Space Telescope
NASA JPL/Cal Tech
Hubble Space Telescope
Observed Data
Chandra (Collected with the Telescope System sensor)

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.



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