Explanation:
These two
beautiful galaxies, NGC 5905 (left) and
NGC 5908 lie about 140 million light-years distant in
the northern constellation
Draco.
Separated by about 500,000 light-years,
the pair are actually both
spiral
galaxies and nicely illustrate
the striking contrasts in appearance
possible when viewing spirals from different perspectives.
Seen face-on, NGC 5905 is clearly a
spiral galaxy with bright star clusters tracing arms
that wind outward from a prominent
central bar.
Oriented edge-on
to our view, the spiral nature of NGC 5908
is revealed by a bright nucleus and dark band
of obscuring dust characteristic of a spiral galaxy's disk.
In fact, NGC 5908 is similar in appearance to the well studied
edge-on spiral galaxy M104 -
The Sombrero Galaxy.
