Sunflower Galaxy

The Sunflower Galaxy (M63/NGC 5055) lies about 29 million light years from Willingboro and is a substantial galaxy, spanning 100,000 light years and contains 400 billion stars, give or take a few.

It is a spiral galaxy, but the spirals are not distinct, well-defined structures like those of the Whirlpool Galaxy. Instead, it sort of appears to have an indeterminate number of spiral arms bound closely together. This makes it a flocculent spiral galaxy.

But the Sunflower Galaxy only really has two spiral arms which are wound about the galactic core, giving the impression of numerous arms. These arms contain many hot young stars, indicating that this is a region of rapid star formation.

The Sunflower Galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, then verified by Charles Messier in 1779 and became M63. The spiral arms within the galaxy were first identified by Lord Rosse in the mid-19th century, making this one of the first galaxies in which such structure was identified.