What is the largest galaxy known to man? Where can I see photos and where is it located?

Question

I've checked on NASA's site and can't find anything. Any help?

Answer 1

The Pinwheel galaxy, Messier 101...

The giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across or nearly twice the diameter of our Milky Way. The galaxy is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. Approximately 100 billion of these stars alone might be like our Sun in terms of temperature and lifetime. Hubble’s high resolution reveals millions of the galaxy’s individual stars in this image.

The Pinwheel’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulae. These nebulae are areas of intense star formation within molecular hydrogen clouds. Brilliant young clusters of sizzling newborn blue stars trace out the spiral arms. The disk of the galaxy is so thin that Hubble easily sees many more distant galaxies lying behind the foreground galaxy.

The Pinwheel Galaxy lies in the northern circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major (The Great Bear) at a distance of 25 million light-years from Earth. We are seeing the galaxy from Earth today as it was at the beginning of Earth's Miocene Period when mammals flourished and the Mastodon first appeared on Earth. The galaxy fills an area on the sky of one-fifth the area of the full moon.





I don't think so - (down↓there) WHOA!! Abell 2029 is WAAAY BIGGER!! AMAZING!!

Answer 2

A cluster of galaxies called Abell 2029 has a giant diffuse galaxy at its center called IC 1101 that is often listed as the largest galaxy known. It is around 5.6 to 6 million light years across which is about 80 times larger than the Milky Way. It is located in the constellation Serpens, close to Virgo at RA 15h 10m 56.1s Dec +5d 44m 41s

A picture of Abell 2029/IC 1101 is here: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/abell2029/

Answer 3

Check out the book "Cosmos". I think this will help answer your question.