Stunning Image of The Pinwheel Galaxy
Posted on March 21, 2006
Hubble has provided this stunning image of the spiral galaxy Messier 101, which is also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy. The galaxy is 25 million light years away, 170,000 light-years across and contains over 1 trillion stars. Hubble says nearly 100 billion of these stars may be similar to our Sun in terms of temperature and how long they last.
The Hubble made the composite image using data from its archives. The image has many treasuries hiding within it. Hubble says a group led by K.D. Kuntz catalogued nearly 3000 previously undetected star clusters in it. The spiral arms of the Pinwheel galaxy contain nebulae regions where there is intense star formation.
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