Pinwheel Galaxy [SEP] constellation
Pinwheel Galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years (six megaparsecs) away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. Discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, it was communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the "Messier Catalogue" as one of its final entries.
On February 28, 2006, NASA and the European Space Agency released a very detailed image of the Pinwheel
the Andromeda Galaxy due to their interactions, velocities, and proximity to one another in the night sky. It also has an H II nucleus.
Etymology.
The galaxy gets its name from the constellation Triangulum, where it can be spotted.
The Triangulum Galaxy is sometimes informally referred to as the "Pinwheel Galaxy" by some amateur astronomy references and in some public outreach websites. However, the SIMBAD Astronomical Database, a professional astronomy database that contains formal designations for astronomical objects, indicates that the name Pinwheel Galaxy