What It Is
M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, is a face-on spiral galaxy interacting with the smaller companion NGC 5195. Its sweeping spiral arms are lanes of stars, gas, and dust where hydrogen clouds are compressed into new star-forming regions.
History
Messier discovered M51 while searching for comet-like objects, but its real importance grew as telescopes improved: its face-on spiral structure made it a classic example for studying how spiral arms organize star formation.
Science Notes
- M51 is about 31 million light-years away in Canes Venatici.
- NASA describes its spiral arms as star-forming factories where gas is compressed into young star clusters.
- The companion galaxy NGC 5195 appears to be passing behind M51 and tugging on one of its arms.
- Hubble images show pink star-forming regions, blue strands of young star clusters, and dust lanes in the Whirlpool's arms.
- distance
- 31 million light-years
- apparentMagnitude
- 8.4
- constellation
- Canes Venatici
- objectType
- Spiral galaxy
- companion
- NGC 5195
- bestObserved
- May from mid-northern latitudes
