NGC 520

Esahubble_heic0810aq_1024

esahubble_heic0810aq April 24th, 2008

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and B. Whitmore (STScI)

NGC 520 is the product of a collision between two disc galaxies that started 300 million years ago. It exemplifies the middle stages of the merging process: the discs of the parent galaxies have merged together, but the nuclei have not yet coalesced. It features an odd-looking tail of stars and a prominent dust lane that runs diagonally across the centre of the image and obscures the galaxy. NGC 520 is one of the brightest galaxy pairs on the sky, and can be observed with a small telescope toward the constellation of Pisces, the Fish, having the appearance of a comet. It is about 100 million light-years away and about 100,000 light-years across. The galaxy pair is included in Arp's catalogue of peculiar galaxies as ARP 157. 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.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810aq/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Arp 157 NGC 520 VV 231
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Interacting
Esahubble_heic0810aq_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 1h 24m 35.2s
DEC = 3° 47’ 45.6”
Orientation
North is 145.0° CCW
Field of View
2.7 x 1.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Pisces

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_heic0810aq_1280
×
ID
heic0810aq
Subject Category
C.5.1.7  
Subject Name
Arp 157, NGC 520, VV 231
Credits
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and B. Whitmore (STScI)
Release Date
2008-04-24T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810aq/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V, B
Central Wavelength
814, 555, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
21.1466167, 3.7959994
Reference Dimension
3271.0, 1828.0
Reference Pixel
1636.5, 915.0
Scale
-1.38367e-05, 1.383668e-05
Rotation
145.03
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
heic0810aq
Metadata Date
2008-04-21T13:08:20+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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