Chandra Release - March 1, 2004

Visual Description: M101

The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of spiral galaxy M101 resembles a fluffy-looking pinwheel.  The dominant colors in the image are shades of dark red, blue, green, and orange.  The image depicts a complex structure of the galaxy's various features in X-ray light, including its central bright core, vague spiral arms, and diffuse hot gas.   Chandra observations of the spiral galaxy M101, as well as several other nearby galaxies (not pictured) have revealed a possible new class of X-ray sources. These mysterious X-ray sources, marked with about a dozen yellow-green diamonds spread throughout the image, are called "quasisoft" sources because they have a temperature in the range of one to four million degrees Celsius.