The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on, counterclockwise intermediate spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years (6.4 megaparsecs) [5] from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. Pierre Méchain, one of Charles Messier’s colleagues, discovered the Pinwheel galaxy in 1781. Located 25 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, M101 has an apparent magnitude of 7.9.
It can be spotted through a small telescope and is most easily observed during June. Charles Messier included the Pinwheel Galaxy as M101 as a late entry to his list of 110 astronomy objects. Messier 101 can be located with your telescope by star-hopping from the bright star, Alkaid, in the handle of the Big Dipper. The galaxy Messier 101 (M101, also known as NGC 5457 and also nicknamed the Pinwheel Galaxy) lies in the northern circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major (The Great Bear), at a distance of about 21 million light-years from Earth.
M101 Stops, The Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as M101, is a spiral galaxy that measures 170,000 lightyears across and is located 25 million lightyears away from Earth in the Ursa Major constellation. Giant spiral galaxies were not built in a day. Construction on these mammoth objects, like Messier 101 (M101) shown in this Hubble Space Telescope image, lasted billions of years. This photograph of M101, nicknamed the Pinwheel Galaxy, showcases a spiral galaxy’s well-known features. The M101 Group is a loose group of galaxies located in the constellation Ursa Major.
M101 Stops, The group is named after the brightest galaxy in the group, the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). M101 (also nicknamed the Pinwheel Galaxy) lies in the northern circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major (The Great Bear), at a distance of 25 million light-years from Earth.
