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The Andromeda galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. It is also known as M31 – is the brightest galaxy you can see. At 2.5 million light-years, it’s also the most distant thing visible to your unaided eye. To the eye, this galaxy appears as a smudge of light larger than a full moon. In late August and early September, begin looking for the galaxy in mid-evening, about midway between your local nightfall and midnight.
The Pinwheel galaxy, is one of the largest images Hubble has ever captured of a spiral galaxy. Assembled from 51 exposures taken during various studies over nearly ten years. The giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across — nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulas.
The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51, also known as the Whirlpool galaxy, appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. It can be spotted with a small telescope most easily during May. The Whirlpool galaxy’s beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy’s structure and star-forming processes.
Pandora's Cluster, is a giant galaxy cluster resulting from the simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters that took place over a span of 350 million years. The galaxies in the cluster make up less than five percent of its mass. The gas (around 20 percent) is so hot that it shines only in X-rays (colored red in this image). The distribution of invisible dark matter (making up around 75 percent of the cluster’s mass) is colored here in blue.
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