M100—located in the constellation Coma Bernices, around 48 million light years away—is the largest spiral galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. These images from the Hubble Space Telescope show details of this elegant two-armed spiral impossible to see with Earth-bound instruments. The blue light is from dense young stars that formed along the galaxy’s spiral arms. The pink regions are immense clouds of hydrogen gas where stars are forming. If one looks closely, even individual stars and filaments of dark dust in the arms’ outer regions can be seen. 
    The larger of the two images is a composite of photographs taken with the wide field instruments on the Hubble telescope; the