Shedding some light on spiral galaxies 🌀 At a distance of about 30 million light-years from Earth, the Whirlpool Galaxy is one of the brightest spirals in the night sky. This composite image of the Whirlpool Galaxy shows the majesty of its structure in a dramatic new way through several of NASA’s orbiting observatories. As you swipe through different spectra, each shows the galaxy through a new lens: X-ray data from NASAChandraXray reveals point-like sources (purple) that are black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems. Chandra also detects a diffuse glow of hot gas that permeates the space between the stars. Optical data from the NASAHubble (green) and infrared emission from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red*) both highlight long lanes in the spiral arms that consist of stars and gas laced with dust. A view of M51 with the GALEX telescope shows hot, young stars that produce lots of ultraviolet energy (blue). Image descriptions: 1. Composite image of the Whirlpool galax...