This infrared image, from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, of M100 is a classic example of a grand design spiral galaxy, with prominent and well-defined spiral arms winding from the hot center, out to the cooler edges of the galaxy.

The galaxy Messier 100, or M100, shows its swirling spiral in this infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. The arcing spiral arms of dust and gas that harbor star forming regions glow vividly when seen in the infrared.

These three images are of the central region of the spiral galaxy M100, taken with three generations of cameras that were sequentially swapped out aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, and document the consistently improving capability of the observatory. The image on the left was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 1 in 1993. The photo is blurry due to a flaw (called spherical aberration) in Hubble's primary mirror. Celestial images could not be brought into a single focus. The middle image was taken in late 1993 with Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 that was installed during the December 2 - 13 space shuttle servicing mission (SM1, STS-61). The camera contained corrective optics to compensate for the mirror flaw, and so the galaxy snapped into sharp focus when photographed. The image on the right was taken with a newer instrument, Wide Field Camera 3, that was installed on Hubble during the space shuttle servicing mission 4 (SM4) in May, 2009. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22913

A comparison image of the M100 Galactic Nucleus, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera-1 (WF/PC1) and Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 (WF/PC2). The HST was placed in a low-Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-31 mission, in April 1990. Two months after its deployment in space, scientists detected a 2-micron spherical aberration in the primary mirror of the HST that affected the telescope's ability to focus faint light sources into a precise point. This imperfection was very slight, one-fiftieth of the width of a human hair. During four spacewalks, the STS-61 crew replaced the solar panel with its flexing problems; the WF/PC1 with the WF/PC2, with built-in corrective optics; and the High-Speed Photometer with the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR), to correct the aberration for the remaining instruments. The purpose of the HST, the most complex and sensitive optical telescope ever made, is to study the cosmos from a low-Earth orbit for 15 years or more. The HST provides fine detail imaging, produces ultraviolet images and spectra, and detects very faint objects.