NGC 5474

NGC 5474 is a dwarf galaxy located about 21 million light years away towards the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is part of the Messier 101 Group of galaxies, which includes the bright Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101). The Messier 101 Group is part of the Virgo Supercluster, which also includes our own Local Group of galaxies.

Even as a dwarf, NGC 5474 contains some billions of stars. Compared to the Milky Way’s hundreds of billions of stars, however, NGC 5474 is rather small. Some of the distortion in the galaxy’s shape may have been caused by interactions with larger galaxies in its cluster, like Messier 101.