The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101, in the Infrared
spitzer_ssc2008-14b July 21st, 2008
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The tangled arms of the Pinwheel galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 101, are decked out in red in this new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The Pinwheel galaxy is located 27 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is what's called a flocculent spiral, which means that its spiral arms are not well defined.
In this infrared composite, the red color shows the dust, while the blue glow around the galaxy is from starlight. Blue indicates light with a wavelength of 3.6 microns, green corresponds to 4.5 microns, and red to 5.8 and 8.0 microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8- and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features.
Provider: Spitzer Space Telescope
Image Source: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1945-ssc2008-14b-The-Pinwheel-Galaxy-M101-in-the-Infrared
Curator: Spitzer Space Telescope, Pasadena, CA, USA
Image Use Policy: Public Domain
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JPG (2.69 MB) Source File
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Image Details
Distance
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- ssc2008-14b
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.1 C.5.4.3
- Subject Name
- Pinwheel galaxy, M101, Messier 101, NGC 5457
- Credits
- NASA/JPL-Caltech
- Release Date
- 2008-07-21
- Lightyears
- 21,440,000
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1945-ssc2008-14b-The-Pinwheel-Galaxy-M101-in-the-Infrared
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Good
- Distance Notes
- Fast Facts
- Facility
- Spitzer, Spitzer, Spitzer
- Instrument
- IRAC, IRAC, IRAC
- Color Assignment
- Blue, Green, Red
- Band
- Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
- Bandpass
- Near-IR, Near-IR, Mid-IR
- Central Wavelength
- 3600, 4500, 8000
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- T
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 210.801114, 54.348594
- Reference Dimension
- 2766, 2766
- Reference Pixel
- 1383, 1383
- Scale
- -1.69444000000000e-04, 1.69444000000000e-04
- Rotation
- 35
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- Spitzer Space Telescope
- URL
- http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- 1200 E. California Blvd.
- City
- Pasadena
- State/Province
- CA
- Postal Code
- 91125
- Country
- USA
- Rights
- Public Domain
- Publisher
- Spitzer Science Center
- Publisher ID
- spitzer
- Resource ID
- ssc2008-14b.tif
- Resource URL
- http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/uploaded_files/images/0000/9776/ssc2008-14b.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2011-09-06
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
