NGC 5907 has long been considered a prototypical example of a warped spiral in relative isolation.

In 2006, an international team of astronomers announced the presence of an extended tidal stream surrounding the galaxy that challenges this picture and suggests the gravitational perturbations induced by the stream progenitor may be the cause for the warp.

The existence of part of these tidal streams has been recently challenged by some deeper surveys.

[7] One supernova has been observed in NGC 5907: SN 1940A (type II-L, mag 14.3) was discovered by Josef J. Johnson on 16 February 1940.

[3][11] This second NGC number refers to a fainter part of the galaxy[3] lying west of the dust lane[11] that was recorded by astronomer and physicist George Johnstone Stoney on April 13, 1850.