So close, so far

The galaxy and bright star in this image might look close together, but they’re over 129 million light-years apart! This is a trick of perspective from Hubble’s vantage point in low-Earth orbit.

The bright, barred spiral galaxy is NGC 3783. It’s also a type-1 Seyfert galaxy, which is a galaxy with a bright central region. The star is called HD 101274, and it’s only 1,530 light-years from us!

A spiral galaxy, seen face-on to the viewer. The bright center of the galaxy is crossed by a glowing bar, and it is surrounded by tightly wound spiral arms, forming a circular shape with relatively clear edges. Faraway galaxies are visible around it, along with a few bright stars, on a dark background. One star to the right of the galaxy is very large and extremely bright with long diffraction spikes.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario

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Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario