NGC 5101 and Friends
From NASA Astronomy
Picture of the Day
This sharp telescopic field of view holds
two bright galaxies. Barred spiral NGC 5101 (top
right) and nearly edge-on system NGC 5078 are
separated on the sky by about 0.5 degrees or about the apparent width of a full
moon.
Found within the
boundaries of the serpentine constellation
Hydra, both are estimated to be around 90 million light-years away and
similar in size to our own large Milky Way galaxy.
In fact, if they
both lie at the same distance their projected
separation would be only 800,000 light-years or so. That's easily less
than half the distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.
NGC 5078 is interacting
with a smaller companion galaxy, cataloged as IC 879, seen just below and left
of the larger galaxy's bright core.
Even more distant
background galaxies are scattered around the colorful field. Some are even
visible right through the face-on disk of NGC 5101. But the prominent spiky stars are in the
foreground, well within our own Milky Way.
