The perfectly picturesque spiral galaxy known as Messier 81, or M81, looks sharp in this new composite from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer. M81 is a "grand design" spiral galaxy, which means its elegant arms curl all the way down into its center. It is located about 12 million light-years away in the Ursa Major constellation and is one of the brightest galaxies that can be seen from Earth through telescopes.
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