Located 250 million light-years away in the constellation Serpens, it is the 220th object in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.
Cackett and Jon Miller of the University of Michigan, along with Bhattacharyya and Strohmayer, used Suzaku's superb spectral capabilities to survey Serpens X-1.
The discovery of Serpens South is a direct result of the Gould's Belt Legacy project, which aims to study all prominent star-forming regions within about 1,600 light-years of Earth.