The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this stunning image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5917.
This image snapped by Hubble’s WFC3 camera shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5917, which lies in the constellation Libra, about 87 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
NGC 5917, also known as LEDA 54809, IRAS 15188-0711 and MCG-01-39-002, is a 13th-magnitude spiral galaxy.
It was discovered on July 16, 1835 by the British astronomer John Herschel.
NGC 5917 lies in the constellation Libra, at a distance of 87 million light-years away.
It has a diameter of roughly 40,000 light-years and is approximately 750 times fainter than can be seen by the unaided eye.
NGC 5917 perhaps is best known for its intriguing interactions with its neighbor, the peculiar spiral galaxy MCG-01-39-003 (not visible here). Together, this pair is known as Arp 254.
Galaxy interactions can lead to very interesting effects: the galaxies can steal mass — in form of stars, dust and gas — from one another, distort and warp one another’s shape, or trigger immense waves of new star formation; sometimes, they interact so strongly that they end up colliding and merging completely.
Unfortunately, if NGC 5917 is destined to merge with MCG-01-39-003, it will happen much too far into the future for us to enjoy the spectacle.
Over the years astronomers have observed a number of supernovae in NGC 5917.
In June 1990, a Type II supernova — now called SN 1990Q — was discovered in this galaxy by C. Pollas of the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur.
In 2005, a Type Ia supernova — SN 2005cf — was discovered by astronomers Pugh and Li with the robotic KAIT telescope.
It appeared to be projected on top of a bridge of matter connecting MCG-01-39-003 with NGC5917.
In January 2013, a supernova called PSN J15213475-0722183 was spotted in NGC 5917 by the CHASE (CHilean Automatic Supernovas sEarch) project.
This image of NGC 5917 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths.
The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
