Hubble image archive
Spitzer Image of M101
The galaxy Messier 101 is a swirling spiral of stars, gas, and dust. Messier 101 is nearly twice as wide as our Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer's view, taken in infrared light, reveals the galaxy's delicate dust lanes as yellow-green filaments. Such dense dust clouds are where new star...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2009
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2009-07-2486-image
The galaxy Messier 101 is a swirling spiral of stars, gas, and dust. Messier 101 is nearly twice as wide as our Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer's view, taken in infrared light, reveals the galaxy's delicate dust lanes as yellow-green filaments. Such dense dust clouds are where new stars can form. In this image, dust warmed by the light of hot, young stars glows red. The rest of the galaxy's hundreds of billions of stars are less prominent and form a blue haze. Astronomers can use infrared light to examine the dust clouds where stars are born.
Credits
NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech, and K. Gordon (STScI)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | M101, NGC 4547, The Pinwheel Galaxy |
| Object Description | Face-on Spiral Galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 14h 3m 13.0s |
| Dec. Position | 54° 20' 52.99" |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Distance | 21.8 million light-years (6.7 megaparsecs) |
| Dimensions | This image is 18 arcminutes (114,000 light-years or 35,000 parsecs) wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The science team for the Spitzer data include K. Gordon (STScI), C. Engelbracht, G. Rieke, K. Misselt, and J.-D. Smith (University of Arizona), and R. Kennicutt (University of Cambridge). |
| Instrument | Spitzer>IRAC and Spitzer>MIPS |
| Exposure Dates | Mar 8, 2004 and May 10/11, 2004 |
| Filters | 85 sec/pixel (IRAC and 200 sec/pixel (MIPS 24 micron) |
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Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
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