M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major.

M101 is a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years. By comparison, the Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light-years. It has around a trillion stars, twice the number as our own Milky Way. The red patches you can see in the galaxy are areas of star formation, the red colour coming from ionised hydrogen gas.

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