Barred spiral NGC 5101 (top right) and nearly
edge-on system NGC 5078 are
separated on the sky by about 0.5 degrees or about the apparent
width of a full moon. Found within the boundaries of the
serpentine constellation Hydra, both are estimated to be around
90 million light-years away and similar in size to our own large
Milky Way galaxy. In fact, if they both lie at the same distance
their projected separation would be only 800,000 light-years or
so. That's easily less than half the distance between the Milky
Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. NGC 5078 is interacting with a
smaller companion galaxy, cataloged as IC 879, seen just below
and left of the larger galaxy's bright core.
