The strongPinwheel Galaxy/strong Taken April 5, 2011. The strongPinwheel Galaxy/strong (also known as strongMessier 101/strong or strongNGC 5457/strong) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 25 million light-years (eight megaparsecs) away in the constellation Ursa Major, first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.