Spiral galaxy NGC 3318 imaged by the Hubble House Telescope. Credit score: ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO, R. J. Foley, Acknowledgement: R. Colombari
The spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 3318 are lazily draped throughout this picture from the NASA/ESA Hubble House Telescope. This spiral galaxy lies within the constellation Vela and is roughly 115 light-years away from Earth. Vela was initially a part of a far bigger constellation, often known as Argo Navis after the fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology, however this unwieldy constellation proved to be impractically massive. Argo Navis was cut up into three separate components known as Carnina, Puppis, and Vela — every named after a part of the Argo. As befits a galaxy in a nautically impressed constellation, the outer edges of NGC 3318 virtually resemble a ship’s sails billowing in a mild breeze.
Regardless of its placid look, NGC 3318 has performed host to a spectacularly violent astronomical phenomenon, a titanic supernova first detected by an novice astronomer in 2000. Because of NGC 3318’s distance from Earth, the unique supernova should have taken place in or round 1885. Coincidentally, this was the 12 months by which the one supernova ever to be detected in our neighboring galaxy Andromeda was witnessed by Nineteenth-century astronomers.
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