                    APOD: 2018 May 4 - The View Toward M101

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                  2018 May 4
                                      [2]
                            The View Toward M101
                Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Joonhwa Lee [4]

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in
Charles Messier's [5]  famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least [6]
. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the
size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral
nebulae [7]  observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the
Leviathan [8]  of Parsontown. M101 shares [9] this modern telescopic field of
view with spiky foreground stars within the Milky Way and a companion dwarf
galaxy NGC 5474 [10]  (lower right). The colors of the Milky Way [11] stars
can also be found in the starlight from the large island universe. Its core is
dominated by light from cool yellowish stars. Along [12] its grand design
spiral arms are the blue colors of hotter, young stars mixed with obscuring
dust lanes and pinkish star forming regions. Also known as the Pinwheel
Galaxy, M101 [13]  lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation
Ursa Major, about 23 million light-years away [14] . NGC 5474 has likely been
distorted by its past gravitational interactions with the dominant M101.

                    Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend [15]

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1805/M101_3Days_New_APOD.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] https://blog.naver.com/omololee/221260541583
  [5] ap000311.html
  [6] http://www.messier.seds.org/m/m102d.html
  [7] http://www.messier.seds.org/more/m101_rosse.html
  [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_of_Parsonstown
  [9] https://blog.naver.com/omololee/221260541583
  [10] http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1424a/
  [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy#Milky_Way
  [12] https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.00969
  [13] http://www.messier.seds.org/m/m101.html
  [14] http://hubblesite.org/video/517/news_release/2006-10
  [15] ap180505.html
  [16] ap180503.html
  [17] archivepix.html
  [18] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [19] lib/aptree.html
  [20] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [21] calendar/allyears.html
  [22] /apod.rss
  [23] lib/edlinks.html
  [24] lib/about_apod.html
  [25] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180504
  [26] ap180505.html
  [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [28] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [29] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [30] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [31] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [32] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [33] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [34] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [35] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [36] http://www.mtu.edu/
