esahubble_opo0521b July 28th, 2005
Credit: NASA, ESA, W. Li and A. Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley), S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
This ESO/NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture shows M 51, an interacting spiral galaxy, which is also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. It is located about 25 Million light years away from Earth, but can still easily observed with a small telescope by amateur astronomers. M 51 is also a popular object among professional astronomers as it shows an ongoing enhanced star formation rate, which is probably caused by the interaction with its companion galaxy (not visible on the picture). The galaxy was also the location of two supernovae within the last couple of years: The first one appeared in 2005, the second one in 2011.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0521b/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
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