Stephan’s Quintet. (IMAGE)

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Stephan’s Quintet.

Caption

The four galaxies in roughly a vertical line lie at 270 million light years and are strongly interacting with each other. The galaxy to the left, NGC 7320, lies to the foreground, 54 million light years away. Looking carefully, one can see many individual stars in the image of NGC 7320. Knowledge of the properties of these stars yields a distance to the galaxy.

Credit

NASA

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.