WISE

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Observation • May 25th, 2011

This galaxy's face is angled about 90 degrees from our view, so it appears edge-on and thin as a splinter, or knife. It was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel in 1788. There is a large complex of stellar streams surrounding the galaxy, which can't be seen in the WISE image. These are the torn-up shreds of smaller galaxies that were consumed. The faint green hue seen in the WISE composite is due to the "halo" of old stars that encircles the central region of the galaxy. The Splinter Galaxy is about 53 million light-years away in the constellation Draco, and is nearly 200,000 light-years across.