Image: Lupus Chance Alignment

The subject of this week’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photography is the stunning Spiral Galaxy NGC 5530. The NGC5530 is located 40 million light years away from Constellation Lupus. This galaxy is classified as a “flocculant” spiral. In other words, the spiral arm is patchy and obscure.

Some galaxies have a very bright center, with an ultra-high Massive black hole of feasts there, but the bright source near the centre of NGC 5530 is not an active black hole, but a star within our own galaxy, only 10,000 light years from Earth. This chance alignment gives the star the appearance of being in the dense mind of NGC 5530.

If you had pointed to a backyard telescope on the NGC 5530 in the evening of September 13th, 2007, you would have seen another bright spot light adorned the galaxy. That night, Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova named SN 2007it by comparing the appearance of the NGC 5530 with a reference photograph of the galaxy from a telescope.

It is worth noting that even one supernova can be discovered using this painstaking method, but Evans has actually discovered over 40 supernovaes like this! This particular discovery was truly a coincidence. A few days before the explosion was discovered, light from the supernova may have completed its 40 million year journey to Earth.