The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51a) is a spiral galaxy with an interacting dwarf galaxy. The width of M51a alone is approximately 7 arcminutes. Using the standard ruler method, answer the following:
a. Assuming M51a is the size of the Milky Way Galaxy (100,000 ly
across), what is the distance to M51a?
b. How well does your answer for part (a) agree with currently
accepted distance of 26 million light-years? Explain.
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