Galaxy M101

M101 is a face-on spiral galaxy that is 21 million light-years from Earth. It lies about five degrees north of the end segment of the Big Dipper's handle. The galaxy spans 250,000 light-years across and is composed of a trillion stars. There is a very modest black hole of about 25 solar masses at its center. The name comes from a list of 110 objects first created by Charles Messier in 1781. He was interested in comets and his list gave the location of fuzzy objects that were stationary in the sky and therefore not to be confused with comets. Only in the 20th century did it become clear that some of these objects, like M101, were actually galaxies composed of millions of stars that were millions of light-years away.