The M100 Spiral Galaxy

Photo courtesy of NASA.
The vastness of space is beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend it. In order to gain a little perspective on its size, consider our sun...which is just a single star in a single galaxy, the Milky Way. Now consider the fact that the Milky Way galaxy contains an estimated 400+ billion stars (including our sun). And finally, consider the fact that there are billions of galaxies in the universe. It simply boggles the mind to think about it!

Today's picture features the M100 Spiral Galaxy, meaning it was the 100th object listed in the Messier Catalog of non-stellar objects. M100 is similar to the Milky Way in that it is a spiral galaxy with well-defined "arms", each of which contains several billion stars. All total, the M100 galaxy contains 100 billion stars.

M100 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and it is tilted virtually face-on when viewed from the earth. These two conditions together make it easy to view M100 through even a moderately sized amateur telescope. If you decide to look for it, you'll find M100 located approximately 56 million light years away from earth in the spring constellation of Coma Berenices.

This beautifully detailed photo of the M100 Spiral Galaxy was taken by the amazing Hubble Space Telescope in 1993.

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