Sunflower Galaxy (M63)

Sunflower Galaxy (M63) — galaxy, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Sunflower Galaxy (M63) in an interactive 3D view of space. See its catalogue position, distance and astronomical facts.

Instead of two clean arms, a tangle of short golden filaments swirls around its core like the seeds of a sunflower — a galaxy wrapped in a faint stream from a shredded dwarf.

Type

Flocculent spiral (SA(rs)bc)

Distance

29 million light-years

Note

Dozens of short, feathery arm segments

Shown here

Representative stars, sampled from its measured light and labelled as such: no survey resolves its stars across the disc

Glow & dust

Old stars: a 3D bulge and disc fitted to WISE infrared; young stars from GALEX; Herschel dust; star-forming knots from WISE

Depth

Disc tilted 59° (measured); its thickness and depth are modelled

Explore Sunflower Galaxy (M63) in 3D

Sunflower Galaxy (M63) is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.