This galaxy can't hide from X-ray eyes
1 Dec 2008
With a diameter of about 170,000 light-years, the galaxy Messier 101 (M101) is a swirling spiral of stars, gas and dust whose diameter is nearly twice that of our Milky Way galaxy. Its face-on orientation enables telescopes to get a good view of its spiral structure, and provided the inspiration for its nickname—the Pinwheel Galaxy. M101 is about 25 million light-years from Earth.
This Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite image of M101 is one of the longest exposures ever obtained of a spiral galaxy at X-ray wavelengths. The individual point-like sources in the image include binary star systems containing black holes and neutron stars, and the remains of supernova explosions.
This is what the Pinwheel Galaxy looks like at normal optical wavelengths.
Other sources of X-rays include hot gas in the arms of the galaxy and clusters of massive, hot stars.
X-ray observations like these of M101 will be used to establish a valuable X-ray profile of a galaxy similar to the Milky Way. This will help astronomers better understand the evolutionary paths that produce black holes, and provide a baseline for interpreting the observations of more distant galaxies.
Adapted from information issued by NASA / CXC / JHU / K.Kuntz et al..
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