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Properties

The Whirlpool Galaxy lies at a distance of about 23 to 31 million light-years from Earth. Based on the 1991 measurement by the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies using the D isophote at the B-band, the Whirlpool Galaxy has a diameter of 23.58 kiloparsecs (76,900 light-years). Overall the galaxy is about 88% the size of the Milky Way. Its mass is estimated to be 160 billion solar masses, or around 10.3% of the mass of Milky Way Galaxy.

A black hole, once thought to be surrounded by a ring of dust, but now believed to be partially occluded by dust instead, exists at the heart of the spiral. A pair of ionization cones extend from the active galactic nucleus.