The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of a spiral galaxy called NGC 5861.
This Hubble image shows NGC 5861, an intermediate spiral galaxy located some 85 million light-years away in the constellation of Libra. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through four filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Riess et al.
NGC 5861 resides about 85 million light-years away in the constellation of Libra.
Otherwise known as LEDA 54097 or AGC 550017, the galaxy is classified as an intermediate spiral galaxy.
“Astronomers classify most galaxies by their morphology,” Hubble astronomers explained.
“For example, the Milky Way Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy.”
“An intermediate spiral galaxy has a shape lying in between that of a barred spiral galaxy, one that appears to have a central bar-shaped structure, and that of an unbarred spiral galaxy, one without a central bar.”
NGC 5861 is about 80,000 light years across, and has two long spiral arms.
The galaxy is the foremost member of a small galaxy group that also includes the elliptical galaxy NGC 5858.
Two supernova explosions were observed in NGC 5861: SN 1971D on February 24, 1971 and SN 2017erp on June 13, 2017.
“Supernovae are powerful and luminous explosions that can light up the night sky,” the researchers said.
“The brightest supernova ever recorded was possibly SN 1006. It shone 16 times as bright as Venus from April 30 to May 1, 1006 CE.”
