00:00On this day in space
00:02In 1773, a French astronomer named Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy,
00:08also known as Messier 51 or M51.
00:11Charles Messier was scanning the sky for objects that could confuse comet hunters when he catalogued the galaxy as M51.
00:17However, Messier wasn't able to see the spiral structure and he didn't identify it as a galaxy.
00:2272 years later, another astronomer named William Parsons saw the whirlpool shape, but he thought it was a spiral nebula.
00:29Eventually, Edwin Hubble found out that M51 and other creatures like it were actually galaxies.
00:34And that's what happened on this day in space.
