Image: Hubble Interacting Galaxy NGC 520 (2008-04-24)

Description: NGC 520 is the product of a collision between two disk galaxies that started 300 million years ago. It exemplifies the middle stages of the merging process: the disks 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 center 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 catalog 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. About the object Object name NGC 520, Arp 157, VV 231, KPG 031 Object description Interacting Galaxies Position (J2000) 01 24 35.42 +03 47 55.0 Constellation Pisces Distance 100 million light-years (50 million parsecs) About the data Data description The Hubble image was created using HST data from proposal 9735: B. Whitmore (STScI) Instrument ACS/WFC Exposure date(s) October 22, 2004 Exposure time 77 minutes Filters F435W (B), F555W (V), and F814W (I)
Title: Hubble Interacting Galaxy NGC 520 (2008-04-24)
Credit: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/16/image/bo/ (direct link)
Author: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and B. Whitmore (STScI)
Permission: This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use. The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the Template:ESA-Hubble tag.
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