Stephan's Quintet group of galaxies

by: Nasa/ESA/Novapix
Reference: a-amg02-00102
Date: 2006-05-08

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a close-up view of the central part of Stephan's Quintet, giving a magnificent view of a gigantic cosmic collision. Stephan's Quintet, as its name implies, is a group of five galaxies (NGC7317, 7318A, 7318B, 7319 and 7320) and lies about 270 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus (North-west of the Great Square of Pegasus). A sixth galaxy (NGC 7320C) lies south-east of the other five (upper left-hand corner of the overview image). The galaxy group was the first of its kind to be discovered and was found by the French astronomer Edouard Stephan in 1877, using the Foucault 80-cm reflector at the Marseille Observatory. Today we know of hundreds of similar groupings, but few are as spectacular as Stephan's Quintet. This image is a mosaic of two pointings with the WFPC2 instrument made in December 1998 and June 1999.

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