Interacting Galaxies
RA 13h 52m 16.39s Dec +02° 06' 15.0"
Virgo
450 million light-years (150 million parsecs)
ACS/WFC
December 22, 2001
33 minutes
F435W (B) and F814W (I)
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration & A. Evans (U of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook Univ)
April 24, 2008
ABOUT THIS IMAGE:
NGC 5331 is a pair of interacting galaxies beginning to link their arms . The centers of the two galaxies are less than 30 seconds apart. There is a blue trail which appears in the image flowing to the right of the system. NGC 5331 is very bright in the infrared, with about a hundred billion times the luminosity of the Sun. It is located in the constellation Virgo, the Maiden, about 450 million light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 13, 1793
This
image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken
by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th
anniversary on 24th April 2008.