Spiral Galaxy M101

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ABOUT THIS IMAGE

This giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across, or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. About 100 billion of them could be similar to our Sun.

Credit for Hubble Image: NASA and ESA

Acknowledgment: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana)

Credit for CFHT Image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/ J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum

Credit for NOAO Image: G. Jacoby, B. Bohannan, M. Hanna/ NOAO/AURA/NSF