Sunny Priyan
The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530.
Credit: European Space Agency
This galaxy is situated 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf, and classified as a ‘flocculent’ spiral, meaning its spiral arms are patchy and indistinct.
Image Credit: Pixabay
Unlike galaxies with active supermassive black holes, the bright source near NGC 5530’s center is actually a nearby star in our own galaxy, just 10,000 light-years from Earth.
Image Credit: Pixabay
This chance alignment makes the star appear at NGC 5530’s dense core, and on September 13, 2007, a backyard telescope would have revealed it as a bright point of light near the galaxy.
Image Credit: Pixabay
Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova, named SN 2007IT, by comparing NGC 5530’s appearance through the telescope to a reference photo of the galaxy.
Image Credit: Pixabay
Though discovering even one supernova this way is remarkable, Evans has found over 40—this serendipitous discovery likely reached Earth just days before Evans spotted it after a 40-million-year journey.
Image Credit: Pixabay