Discover Hubble's Stunning Celestial Alignment: What It Means for Astronomy

The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530. 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.

The bright source close to the center of NGC 5530 is a star in our own galaxy, just 10,000 light-years from Earth, rather than an active black hole, unlike some galaxies with incredibly brilliant centers that are home to a devouring supermassive black hole.

The star appears to be at the dense core of NGC 5530 due to chance alignment.

On the evening of September 13, 2007, you would have noticed another bright point of light embellishing the galaxy if you had pointed a backyard telescope at NGC 5530.

Robert Evans, an amateur astronomer from Australia, identified SN 2007IT, a supernova, that evening by comparing the telescope image of NGC 5530 with a reference image of the galaxy.

Probably only a few days before Evans noticed the explosion, the light from the supernova finished its 40-million-year trek to Earth, making this specific finding genuinely accidental.