It’s one of the last entries in Charles Messier’s famous catalog, but M101 is definitely not one of the least. The galaxy is big—roughly 170,000 light-years across, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy. This multiwavelength view is a composite of images recorded by space-based telescopes. Color coded from X-rays to infrared wavelengths (high to low energies), the image data was taken from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (x-rays, purple), the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (ultraviolet, blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (visible light, yellow), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared, red). While the X-ray data shows the multimillion degree gas around M101’s exploded stars and neutron star and black hole binary star systems, the lower energy data shows the stars and dust that define M101’s grand spiral arms. Known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major. It’s about 25 million light-years away.

Image Credit: NASA