Sunny Priyan
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530. It is classified as a ‘flocculent’ spiral, meaning its spiral arms are patchy and indistinct.
This galaxy is situated 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf.
The bright source near the center 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 appearance that the star is at the dense heart of NGC 5530.
It’s remarkable to discover even one supernova using this painstaking method, Evans has in fact discovered more than 40 supernovae this way.
Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova, named SN 2007IT, by comparing NGC 5530’s appearance through the telescope to a reference photo of the galaxy.