Astronomers call Messier 63 the Sunflower Galaxy, because they say its spiral shape resembles the spiral of seeds at the center of a sunflower.
Well, sort of.
In this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Sunflower Galaxy also resembles the swirling arms of a hurricane, but on a galactic scale.
Each of those points of light in the galaxy’s spiral arms is a star or cluster of stars, newly formed and blazing blue-white. The Sunflower Galaxy is 27 million light years away in the M51 Group, a group of galaxies dominated by Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy.
Image credits: Clay Junell via Wikimedia Commons, NASA via Wikimedia Commons
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