NGC 5331 is a pair of interacting galaxies beginning to hold their arms . There is a blue trail which appears in the image flowing to the right of the system. NGC 5331 is very bright in the infrared, with about a hundred billion times the luminosity of the Sun. It is located in the constellation Virgo, the Maiden, about 450 million light-years away from Earth. 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. Object Names: NGC 5331, VV 253, KPG 401 Image

---

NGC 5331 is a pair of interacting galaxies beginning to hold their arms . There is a blue trail which appears in the image flowing to the right of the system. NGC 5331 is very bright in the infrared, with about a hundred billion times the luminosity of the Sun. It is located in the constellation Virgo, the Maiden, about 450 million light-years away from Earth. 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. Object Names: NGC 5331, VV 253, KPG 401 Image Type: Astronomical Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

---

Size: 3134px × 3134px
Photo credit: © American Photo Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

Keywords: astronomical, astronomy, deep, galaxies, galaxy, hst, hubble, jet, jpl, laboratory, nebula, orbit, probe, propulsion, research, science, scientific, space, star, supernova, telescope