Post #440

While we haven’t found evidence of snakes 80 million light-years away, the constellation Serpens lies in the northern celestial hemisphere. 🐍 This galaxy, NGC 5921, is located in the Serpens constellation approximately 80 million light-years from Earth. Serpens is the only one of the 88 modern constellations to consist of two unconnected regions — Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda. These two regions — whose names mean the Serpent’s Head and the Serpent’s Tail, respectively — are separated by Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. This galaxy, much like our own, contains a prominent bar. Roughly half of all spiral galaxies are thought to contain bars, and these bars affect their parent galaxies by fuelling star formation and affecting the motion of stars and interstellar gas.