Hubble captured this newly-released image (recently unearthed from Hubble’s archives), showing a glorious spiral galaxy found in the constellation of Virgo, located approximately 40 million light-years from Earth.

The galaxy in question, known as NGC 4517, is roughly the same size as our galaxy, tipping in as the larger galaxy by a small margin. In this image, we are seeing the galaxy from edge on, preventing us from seeing the full magnitude of its bright central region (which most likely contains a supermassive black hole)

The most noticeable thing in the image, the massive star (located above the galaxy’s central region), does not belong to the galaxy. Instead, it’s a member of our own. Its relative closeness is the reason the star appears so much larger than one would expect it to be.

See a larger image here

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