M101 also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, is a giant spiral disk, made up of stars, dust and gas located 23 million light years away from Earth, in the constellation of Ursa Major. The galaxy is 170,000 light years across in diameter, has a mass of around 110 billion solar masses with a black hole around 30 solar masses sitting at its centre .The galaxy holds giant molecular hydrogen clouds, which pull together under their own gravitational force, which in turn creates stars. The Pin wheel is home to over 1 trillion stars, with roughly 100 billion of these stars being very similar to our own Sun.
The photo above is the most detailed image of a spiral galaxy that Hubble has ever captured. The image is composed of 51 individual Hubble exposures. The shape of the galaxy is formed due to gravitational forces and stellar winds. The blue areas in the image are regions where new stars have formed, whilst the bright centre of M101 holds very old stars.
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