1 min read

Hubble Views a Spiral Galaxy Crowned by a Star

Edge on view of a galaxy angled down to the right, with a bright star above

Slightly bigger than our Milky Way, the spiral galaxy named NGC 4517 is seen edge-on, crowned by a very bright star in this Hubble image. The star is actually much closer to us than the galaxy, explaining why it appears to be so big and bright in the picture.

NGC 4517 is located approximately 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). It has a bright center, but this is not visible in this Hubble image. Its orientation has led to it being included in many studies of globular clusters, clumps of stars that orbit the centers of galaxies like satellites.

The galaxy was discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, who described this region as having "a pretty bright star situated exactly north of the center of an extended milky ray." Of course the "milky ray" seen by Herschel is actually this spiral galaxy, but with his 17th century observing gear he could only tell that there a fuzzy, blurry structure below the much brighter star. This image is composed from visible and infrared light gathered by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: European Space Agency

Share

Details

Last Updated
Apr 17, 2023
Editor
NASA Hubble Mission Team

Related Terms

Explore More

Taking up most of the image, is a multi-colored nebula in shades of blue, pink, yellow, orange, purple, and white. It appears as two translucent orbs attached by a white band.
5 min read

Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula

Article1 day ago
A spiral galaxy, seen face-on to the viewer. The bright center of the galaxy is crossed by a glowing bar, and it is surrounded by tightly wound spiral arms, forming a circular shape with relatively clear edges. Faraway galaxies are visible around it, along with a few bright stars, on a dark background. One star to the right of the galaxy is very large and extremely bright with long diffraction spikes.
2 min read

Hubble Captures a Bright Galactic and Stellar Duo

Article5 days ago
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158. The majestic galaxy has a pinwheel shape made up of bright blue stars wound around a yellow-white hub of central stars. The hub has a slash of stars across it, called a bar. The galaxy is tilted face-on to our view from Earth. A slightly s-shaped white line across the top is a Hubble image is of an asteroid streaking across Hubble's view. It looks dashed because the image is a combination of several exposures of the asteroid flying by like a race car.
5 min read

Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids

Article6 days ago
Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

James Webb Space Telescope

The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

Perseverance Rover

Parker Solar Probe

Juno