Alternate Names

NGC 5194/5195, Whirlpool Galaxy

Type

Supermassive

Location

in the constellation Canes Venatici, beneath the Big Dipper

Finder Chart

Distance

27 million light-years

Mass

1 million times the mass of the Sun

Size

Diameter of 4 million miles (6 million km), about four times the diameter of the Sun.

Discovery Methods

• Detection of an accretion disk

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region of NGC 5194, the larger of the two galaxies that form M51. A supermassive black hole may lie at the center of the bright ball of stars at the center. The bright red blotches in the spiral arms are regions where new stars are being born. []

This document was last modified: October 24, 2005.